Roald Dahl, Michelle Magorian, and whether or not to give up on books – I’m back from holiday, and Rachel and I have a lovely new (…long) episode of Tea or Books?
In our first half, we discuss whether or not we give up on books, and what factors might play into that decision – and in the second half we get all children’s-literature-focused. We’re supposedly pitting Matilda by Roald Dahl against Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (which only have in common that Rachel and I loved them both as children) – but we end up talking about every Dahl we can think of.
This is the excellent airbnb place I stayed in Siena, and this is our iTunes page. Listen to the ep up above, over there, or any which way you choose. We’re not the bosses of you! Having said that, I do want to boss you into telling us what you’d choose for each half. And more ideas, please! We got so many good ideas from people a while ago… and we’re running out.
Here are the books and authors we talked about in this episode:
Collection of Sand by Italo Calvino
Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Sword of Bone by Anthony Rhodes
Chatterton Square by E.H. Young
Miss Mole by E.H. Young
But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
Jane Austen
The Dover Road by A.A. Milne (book your tickets here!)
Private Lives by Noel Coward
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Zadie Smith
P.G. Wodehouse
Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Elizabeth Bowen
Jane Austen
Muriel Spark
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Who Was Changed and Who was Dead by Barbara Comyns
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
P.D. James
The Chateau by William Maxwell
A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
Going Solo by Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach: a play by David Wood
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
The Twits by Roald Dahl
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Doreen by Barbara Noble
Kisses on a Postcard by Terence Frisby
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh