“To the Lighthouse” is Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece about summer holidays and the passage of time. It’s perhaps the greatest novel ever written about middle-age, published when Viriginia Woolf herself was middle aged, and recorded by Sophie and Jonty at the height of their middle aged powers. 50 is the new 25! The novel was published in 1927, after “Mrs. Dalloway” and the “Common Reader” in 1925. It was an instant hit, sold twice as much as Mrs. Dalloway before publication and was immediately declared Woolf’s masterpiece, admitted by Woolf’s husband Leonard. Woolf herself wasn’t sure about some bits of it, but knew she’d nailed the dinner party scene at the novel’s centre, where the wonderful Mrs. Ramsay serves her guests a boeuf en daube for 14. Join Sophie and Jonty as they continue the story of Virginia Woolf’s extraordinary life and times, told through the details of how she came to write her greatest books. This week we trace her childhood, her summer holidays in Cornwall, her extraordinary, famous, demanding parents, and the beginnings of Woolf’s long struggle with mental illness. And of course we take plenty of detours into holiday cooking and … you guessed it, particle physics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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BONUS: Virginia Woolf, the not-so-Common Reader (with Alexandra Harris)
‘Think of a book as a very dangerous and exciting game, which it takes two to play at.’ For Virginia Woolf, reading wasn’t a passive act. It requires guts and ingenuity. At times one is locked in combat with a book, at others one is the ‘accomplice’ of a writer, like an accomplice to crime, aiding an act of daring imagination. Few people read as closely, as critically and joyfully as Virginia Woolf. For her, books were real relationships – and she famously dedicated Orlando to some of her favourite historical writers as well as her friends. To talk about Woolf as a reader, Jonty is joined by author and scholar Alexandra Harris. Alexandra is author of the acclaimed Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, Weatherland, The Rising Down and a study of Virginia Woolf. She is currently writing a book all about Virginia Woolf’s life as a reader. Together, Alexandra and Jonty talk about Virginia Woolf’s unique philosophy of reading and discuss some of her favourite books.Further reading:Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper (Thames & Hudson, 2023) by Alexandra HarrisVirginia Woolf (Thames & Hudson, 2024) by Alexandra HarrisThe Rising Down (Faber & Faber, 2024) by Alexandra HarrisWeatherland: Writers and Artists Under English Skies (Thames & Hudson, 2015) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Virginia Woolf 1: Mrs Dalloway
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not the Secret Life of Books, as we joyfully immerse ourselves in four of Woolf's greatest books to celebrate what is probably the most extraordinary middle-aged flowering of literary talent in history. Virginia Woolf was 43 when she published Mrs. Dalloway, 100 years ago in 1925. She went on to publish To the Lighthouse, Orlando and a Room of One's Own, to name only a few of her extraordinary achievements.To celebrate Mrs. Dalloway's centenary, Virginia Woolf's middle-aged burst of creative brilliance, and to tell the story of the other members of the Bloomsbury circle around her, we take a deep dive into Woolf and her work. Virginia Stephen was born in Victorian England to a famously literary and artistic family: both parents were fixtures in high end London intellectual society. But her childhood was turbulent as much it was illuminated by brilliance all around her. The young Virginia Stephen and her sister Vanessa were sexually and emotionally abused as children and young teenagers, and these early experiences contributed to Woolf's battle with mental illness, probably bipolar disorder. But her life was also filled with joy, including the joy of her marriage to Leonard Woolf and her love affair with Vita Sackville-West.One of many wonderful things about Woolf is that although she died relatively young she left a huge amount of writing behind her. 9 novels, 25 years of diaries, letters, lectures, essays and journalism. Join us for an extraordinary 20thC story of literary glamor and dazzling success, alongside terrible grief, suffering and trauma. We’ll meet many of the biggest names in Modernism, we’ll encounter some of the century’s most horrifying events, and one of fiction's greatest parties. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Smells Like Teen Spirit: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Martin Amis’ Money, Thomas Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero… These books are often cited as defining works of the 1980s - serious works of literature that captured the spirit of the age. They are all great books, but spare a thought too for Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾. Like The Diary of a Nobody, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole is a fictional work, following just over a year in the life of a teenage boy in the city of Leicester in the Midlands of England. Adrian falls in love with a girl at school called Pandora, embarks on a career as a self-proclaimed ‘intellectual’, witnesses his parents’ affairs, separation and eventual reunion, and spends a lot of time examining his spots and measuring the size of his 'thing'. All this happens against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s government, the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana, and the Falklands War. The author Sue Townsend was a comic writer, but she uses her comedy - as all the best satirists do - to explore difficult themes. In her case: poverty, domestic abuse and the disintegration of the Welfare State. This is the last in SLoB's series on male diarists through the centuries (and, yes, there will be a follow-up series soon looking at female diarists). The significance of each diary is that it creates space for a previously unheard voice in British culture (Pepys and the Middle Classes, Boswell and Scottish youth, The Diary of a Nobody and the lower-middle-classes). Adrian Mole's voice is that of an impoverished teenage boy far from the capital. Unlike - say - Oliver Twist - he is not a passive victim, but possesses immense agency. He may not be the first of his type, but he is probably the first to be a best-seller. The Secret Diary sold 2 million copies in its first three years - and, as of date, around 20 million in total. In this episode, Sophie and Jonty discuss how and why this deceptively throwaway book took a nation by storm, why it deserves greater prominence as a serious work of literature, and they even reveal the exact length of Adrian’s ‘thing’ as measured (repeatedly) by himself. Texts mentioned...Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State (1989) by Sue Townsend The Female Eunuch (1970) by Germaine Greer The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte Just William (1922) by Richmal Crompton Sons and Lovers (1913) by DH Lawrence Rivals (1988) by Jilly Cooper TV: Friday Night, Saturday Morning (1979). BBC2. Debate between Malcolm Muggeridge and Monty Python Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Secret River with Kate Grenville
This special episode on a great modern classic was recorded live at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2025. Very few novels can genuinely claim to have changed a nation’s consciousness. The Secret River, written by Kate Grenville and published in 2005, is one of those books. It put a spotlight on a side of white settler experience that Australians had been brought up to ignore - the violence, murders and genocide. By questioning her ancestors, Kate Grenville encouraged thousands of Australians with British ancestry to do likewise. Many of us have done so as a consequence of this book, wondering if those heroic pioneers we heard about at a grandparent’s knee were really quite as heroic as all that.Kate Grenville, The Secret River, The Leiutenant, Sarah Thornhill.Kate Grenville, Searching for the Secret River, Unsettled. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
New Zealand