This week, we talked with Namwali Serpell about why Toni Morrison's novels became instant classics, why you should reread them, how we can address the reading crisis around the world, and how (as ever) classic literature especially offers us crucial ways forward. #BookSky #SecretLifeOfBooks

@amariewomack, one of the world’s leading #ToniMorrison scholars, was not a natural born reader. Yet the first time she read Morrison in high school, she devoured it. This week we’re lucky enough to chat with Autumn on the #SecretLifeOfBooks podcast 🔗 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s...

Photo of Autumn Womack by Denise Applewhite, Office of Communication, Princeton University. #SecretLifeOfBooks #BlackHistoryMonth #ToniMorrison #Princetagram

📣 We want to hear from you 📣

If we were to make a list of the #bestbooks since the mid-90s, what books would be on that list? Let us know in the comments below!

#ToniMorrison #SecretLifeOfBooks #BestBooks #BookList #BookSky

In Toni Morrison's third novel #SongOfSolomon, names are highly important. They're also a point of humour -- "Not Doctor Street," for one. Learn more by tuning into the new episode in our #ToniMorrison mini-series on #SecretLifeOfBooks podcast. Out tomorrow!
#BlackHistoryMonth #BookSky

Secret Life of Books Books Podcast · Updated Weekly · 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…

Join our Middlemarch Book Club by subscribing to the #SecretLifeOfBooks on Apple or Patreon!

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s...
Patreon: patreon.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast

Here's your Valentine’s Mixtape, love the Secret Life of Books.

Whether you're in the mood for love, or needing a break from all those sappy love stories, we've got you covered. Tune into the #SecretLifeOfBooks this #ValentinesDay.

Listen to our latest episodes: www.secretlifeofbooks.org

🎬 Is #WutheringHeights really the greatest love story of all time, as suggested in the recent trailer for Emerald Fennell's adaptation? Find out in today’s episode all about Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Out soon, wherever you get podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky #WutheringHeightsMovie

🕯️ Heathcliff was racially ambiguous in #WutheringHeights by Emily Brontë. We're bringing you a primer on Wuthering Heights for anyone wanting a refresher on Bronte and her work. 🎧 Tune in tomorrow, wherever you listen to podcasts!
#SecretLifeOfBooks #WutheringHeightsMovie #BookSky

labyrinthine imagery in George Eliot's Middlemarch

There’s this whole layer going on in Middlemarch of George Eliot using labyrinthine imagery. [...] In fact, every major character is stuck in a labyrinth. They keep getting lost and taking wrong turns.

Similarly, the Minotaur, the monster at the centre of the labyrinth: the hero is trying to find and slay and defeat this external presence [...] Casaubon is trying to do it by writing his book, Lydgate through his hospital, Will through his various undertakings, and so on. Yet, it invariably turns out that the Minotaur is this monster within the self, that everyone's in a labyrinth of their own mind, a labyrinth of their own making.

⭐ In #GeorgeEliot's Middlemarch, every major character is stuck in a labyrinth, the labyrinth of Middlemarch... and they keep getting lost and taking the wrong turns.
#SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

No matter how you feel about #GrahamGreene, you’re sure to enjoy Margery Allingham’s “The Tiger in the Smoke” 😶‍🌫️.

🎧 Tune into the last in our Queens of Crime series, wherever you get your podcasts! 🔗👆 or visit podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q...
#SecretLifeOfBooks #Mystery #BookSky #History

What is it about the “Golden Age” of detective fiction that makes these novels so appealing? Margery Allingham, a #QueenOfCrime herself, has answered this very question. ➡

🎧 Listen to this latest episode, wherever you get your podcasts!
#SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky #AgathaChristie

This week, we're not only doing a #MissMarple story, we're looking at what Marple meant to #AgathaChristie when she invented her. 🎧 Tune into this episode now, wherever you listen to podcasts! or visit: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q...
#SecretLifeOfBooks #classicbooks #BookSky #DetectiveFiction

#GeorgeEliot used her incredibly rigorous, well informed intellect to create events in Middlemarch. This week, we explore the wonderful chronicle that is Middlemarch. Even better, we’re running a book club.

🔗 www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club
#SecretLifeOfBooks #Middlemarch #BookClub

🧺 🍾 Vintage Murder is the Picnic at Hanging Rock of New Zealand fiction.

This week, we’re revisiting the #QueensOfCrime with one of the great detective novels, Vintage Murder by NZ author Ngaio Marsh. 🎧 Out now, wherever you get your podcasts!
🔗👆 visit apple.co/slob
#SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

We’re back with another episode in our mini-series on the #QueensOfCrime - Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham. 🍾 Today we’re talking all about ‘Vintage Murder’ by Ngaio Marsh. 🎧 Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

Mr Casaubon… the guy for Sophie? This week we treat listeners to the story behind the story of the greatness that is #GeorgeEliot.

🎧 Tune into our latest episode, wherever you get your podcasts! Plus, our #Middlemarch #BookClub, starts this week! 🔗👆 apple.co/slob
#SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

🎉🥳📚This New Years, our resolution is to tackle #Middlemarch… and we want you to join us!

The Secret Life of Books Middlemarch bookclub has officially begun. Join the club: www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club

#SecretLifeOfBooks #classicbooks #BookSky #BookClub #ReadingChallenge

🎄 It’s that wonderful time of year where your #ChristmasTree has started to shed pine needles, and the floor probably needs a sweep… but who is to blame?

This week, Sophie and Jonty journey through the many literary influences on Christmas. 🔗👆 apple.co/slob
#SecretLifeOfBooks

“A Visit from St. Nicholas” (often called “The Night Before Christmas”) is more influential than you might think 🎅🕯️.

This week Sophie and Jonty take a sleigh ride through the all things Christmas in literature. Episode out now, wherever you get your podcasts!
#SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

🎁 Need a last minute gift? We’ve got you covered.

This Christmas, gift #SecretLifeOfBooks for a special person in your life to get every episode of the podcast ad-free, with access to exclusive bonus-content, special interviews, and become a member of the SLoB community!
🔗 buff.ly/MBtokZp

🎄 Christmas pudding or Pannetone? Let us know what you prefer in the comments.

This week we’re not only indulging in puddings and pannetone’s, we’re also celebrating all things #Christmas in literature. #SecretLifeOfBooks #Podcast

Both #MaggieOFarrell and #CarolAnnDuffy give Anne Hathaway power by giving her creativity 🖊️.

This week, we deep-dive into Duffy’s sonnet #AnneHathaway in the latest of our subscriber-series on the sonnet! To access this conversation, subscribe to #SecretLifeOfBooks on Apple Podcasts or Patreon .

blue background with text reading: "There's just an enormous amount that can be done with the sonnet. It's a love form. It's a personal form. It creates relationships, they can be very surprising relationships, [...] it can be about politics and power, and it can be about all those things at the same time. And what makes a sonnet so extraordinary is that it's only 14 lines."

The #sonnet is so extraordinary because it’s just 14 lines. But it's because of that compression that the poet has to make every formal choice count – rhyme, break or turn. Our sonnet series is out now for subscribers to the #SecretLifeOfBooks on Apple Podcasts or Patreon. 🔗👆or visit apple.co/slob

🪶 Yeats is a much-loved 20thC Irish poet, whose writing is stunning and lyrical and often dense and difficult. "Leda and the Swan" (1923) is all of the above. It's a beguiling, distrubing retelling of the myth of Zeus disguising himself as a swan.

🔗 apple.co/slob
#SecretLifeOfBooks #irishpoetry

🐱 Meet Emily and Gandhi, official spirit animals of #SecretLifeOfBooks!

This week, Sophie and Jonty delve into one of the greatest poems in the English language, #WilliamBlake’s #TheTyger!

🎧 Tune into this episode tomorrow, wherever you listen to podcasts! #booksky #catsofbluesky #catpoetry

There's something very mundane about the ghosts in #HenryJames’ #TurnOfTheScrew -- they are just 'illustrations' according to #VirginiaWolf. This week, Sophie and Jonty deep dive into one of the most truly chilling ghost stories ever written. 🎧 Episode out today. #SecretLifeOfBooks #classicbooks

👻 Were you a creepy kid? #HenryJames’ The #TurnOfTheScrew tells the story of two children and a governess who are haunted by a pair of very sinister ghosts.

🎧 Tune into this episode tomorrow, wherever you listen to podcasts!

#SecretLifeOfBooks #classicbooks #readingcommunity

🎁 Gift a #SecretLifeOfBooks membership for a book lover in your life to get every episode of the podcast ad-free, with access to exclusive bonus-content, interviews with high profile guests, and to become a member of the SLoB community!
🔗 patreon.com/c/secretlifeofbookspodcast/membership

We’re back with a subscriber-exclusive series on the #sonnet – this week, the #Windhover by #GerardManleyHopkins.

🎧 Want to hear more? Stay tuned for this subscriber-exclusive episode, out today! Not a subscriber yet? we'd love for you to join the club 💛 apple.co/slob

#SecretLifeOfBooks