It’s time for our favourite 10 books from 10 years of ‘Tea or Books?’!
Rachel and I have looked through the books we read for the first ten years of the podcast and have each picked our ten favourites – thank you for everyone who suggested this fun idea. Do get in touch at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com if you’d like to suggest anything for further episodes. Find us above, on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts.
Here are our top tens, with the episodes in which they first appear, if you’d like to read more. Don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers!
RACHEL’S TOP TEN
10. Catherine Carter by Pamela Hansford Johnson (ep 137)
9. Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton (ep 8)
8. A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair (ep 36)
7. The Lark by E. Nesbit (ep 56)
6. Father by Elizabeth von Arnim (ep 91)
5. A Compass Error by Sybille Bedford (ep 47)
4. The Heir by Vita Sackville-West (ep 45)
3. A Pin To See The Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse (ep 34)
2. Four Gardens by Margery Sharp (ep 102)
1. One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes (ep 13)
SIMON’S TOP TEN
10. Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee (ep 20)
9. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (ep 137)
8. Enbury Heath by Stella Gibbons (ep 107)
7. The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola (ep 130)
6. Four Gardens by Margery Sharp (ep 102)
5. The Semi-Detached House and The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden (ep 48)
4. The Sweet and Twenties by Beverley Nichols (ep 52)
3. The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (ep 103)
2. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (ep 20)
1. Greengates by R.C. Sherriff (ep 31)
The other books and authors we mention in this episode are:
Giving Up The Ghost by Hilary Mantel
On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf
Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans
Dark Like Under by Alice Chadwick
Emma by Jane Austen
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Mamma by Diana Tutton
The Young Ones by Diana Tutton
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Westwood by Stella Gibbons
High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
Babbacombe’s by Susan Scarlett
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson
The Stone of Chastity by Margery Sharp
A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford
Messalina of the Suburbs by E.M. Delafield
A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence
Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp
The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning
Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
Oh my goodness, how funny! Rachel may be in my very own city as I write! Powell’s is amazing! Please please can she share about her time there in the next podcast!!
I’ve just made my tbr so much longer and I’m so happy. Such a treat of an episode! Thank you both!
I will make sure she feeds back – and if she breaks her intention of only buying one or two books! You must feel a constant draw to Powell’s.
Ten years always fun listening to you both here is to another ten
thanks Stu!
I am ashamed that I have read only one each of your top 10! I am a recent listener of Tea or Books and apparently I have a lot to catch up with. I have read some of the ones you have mentioned on the recent episodes, but I see I have a lot to catching up to do
Thanks for this list. I usually listen in the car so am unable to write down titles that I am interested in. You have set a ambitious goal, especially for an old lady who does really not feel old.
P.S. I am an ardent Anglophile. I will be visiting London in Sept. and hope to find some of the o.p. titles then.
Oh, no! I just noticed the list of 50 other books. I may not live long enough!
Welcome to Tea or Books and glad we could set you off with a big reading list! Which are the books you’d already read?
Father by Elizabeth Von Arnim (Just read this one) and the Emily Eden books, many years ago. When I was a young librarian, I had a much older colleague who had read many many of the types of books you discuss. She got me on to Emily Eden. I worked at the Central Library in Atlanta and we had a fabulous fiction collection going back to 1900. When they renovated (after my retirement) I think most of the oldies were thrown away – a travesty!
I’ve just started listening to your wonderful podcast and am enjoying it so much. You and Rachel are lovely companions on my drives into work and my pottering around the house.
I studied English Literature at university but haven’t really had a chance to deep dive into books from the 20th century until fairly recently. In many ways, after graduating, I felt exhausted by the idea of classics, and I recovered by getting lost in detective fiction and fantasy. Recently I have come back to ‘Literature’ and have loved getting my brain muscles back into gear and revelling in beautiful prose and stories with depth.
Thank you so much for introducing me to a plethora of incredible new (to me) stories, many by fascinating women.
For someone who is new to your podcast, what five books would you recommend starting with?
Thank you so much, Jemima! So glad to hear you’re enjoying the podcast, we really love to hear that.
For the starter five – the books we mention most often are definitely Emma by Jane Austen, Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker, Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield and Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge. I’m now wondering which fifth one to add… well, One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes from the top of Rachel’s list is a good idea.
Wonderful! Thank you so much, Simon. These are all going on my shopping list. Luckily, my father lives in Gloucestershire (but is from Somerset!) so I can ship Persephone books to him to bring over to Australia (where I live) when he visits later this year. I’ll let you know how I go with those five!
Keep doing what you’re doing – the podcast is terrific.
Ps. Rachel, Emma is my favourite Austen, too. People at uni told me it was a poor choice given P&P and Persuasion were “better”, so I began to second guess myself. No more, I say!
Haha! Rachel is certainly leading the charge there (for comparison, Emma is my third favourite after P&P and S&S, but a long way ahead of Persuasion)
Oh excellent! Really hope you enjoy them when they get to you.
I love lists and am busy scribbling down titles! Although I’ve only read a few of your favs, I do see some familiar names among the listed authors, as well as several exciting new to me titles. Thanks! P.S. Lovely to see Emily Eden pop up. I really enjoyed both the listed titles.
Yes, I definitely cheated by including them both but they ARE in one book, so hopefully I can get away with it. Such lovely books.
What a delightful part 2 celebration! I loved being reminded of many of the books highlighted; Four Gardens, Father, One Fine Day, the two Emily Eden and Greengates are all favourites of mine too and I discovered most of them thanks to your lovely podcast! I have just reshuffled A Pin to see the Peepshow to nearer the top of my tbr too.
No extra homework for me for your next episode – I read The Spring Begins last month and I have nearly finished Crooked Cross. That’s what I call book serendipity!
I definitely wanted to go back and reread everything we talked about :D And well done, you are definitely ahead of me as I haven’t even started Crooked Cross.
Some wonderful choices here. Although it is on the lower, longer, list I vote for Excellent Women. So many great choices though.
Ah yes, those were just books we mentioned in passing. Glad you enjoyed the choices!
A lovely pair of lists, and different too! Very glad to see the Beverley made it into yours, Simon!
Yes, I remember it was my favourite book in whichever year we read it!
Wonderful lists! In my top ten would be ‘A Fortnight in September’ by Sherriff but Greengates is also amazing. Can someone please tell me where to buy Catherine Carter?? or can you republish it please!!??
It should be available as print on demand with Bello, I believe! Sadly couldn’t be in British Library series because we do novels that are commenting on their particular decade – which means historical fiction is out. But hope you can track down a copy!
Thank you! Ordered print on demand via the dreaded Amazon. Looking forward to reading more on your lists.
I enjoyed the episode very much. As a long-time listener, I’ve read 13 of the 20 and have five more TBD. May I make some suggestions for future discussions? I’ve just discovered William Maxwell and would love to see you do one of his short novels. I’d also like to suggest Elizabeth Jolley (Miss Peabody’s Inheritance), Thea Astley (A Descant for Gossips), Bernice Rubens (A Five Year Sentence or The Waiting Game), and Shirley Hazzard (any).
Thanks Grier – and glad you’ve been having fun with Rachel :)
You’re in luck with William Maxwell – way back in #23 we did They Came Like Swallows and Time Will Darken It.
From your others, I read one Jolley (not MPI) and was quite baffled, but haven’t read any of the others – thanks for the recommendation.
Good to see Zola made your list!
Still the only one I’ve read by him, so must check out more.
These are two very interesting lists. People keep recommending books by Sybille Bedford to me, but since the only one I read by her was A Visit to Don Otavio, and it is travel non-fiction, I still cannot link her to fiction in my mind, and keep forgetting to check them out. Her writing in her travel book impressed me so much that I am sure her fiction must be amazing, too. I liked The Ladies’ Paradise, but found the main romance there worrying, so didn’t like that part. I would recommend Zola’s Germinal and The Belly of Paris. Elizabeth von Arnim is still on my TBR, cannot wait.
Wow, there are lots of books I never heard of. Thanks for that.
Well that’s given me a few more to add to my reading list! I was particularly interested in your comments on Edith Nesbit, I have recently done some work on her with Wordsworth Editions who have recently released a collection of her ghost stories, definitely worth a look. I am now intrigued to read The Lark. Thank you for another great episode.