Tea or Books?

Isabella Hammad, Norah Lofts, comfort reads – welcome to episode 135!

In the first half, we discuss whether or not literary fiction can be comfort reads – thank you for the suggestion, Marcy! In the second half, we compare novels we chose from each other’s Best Books of 2024 – Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad vs Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts.

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. Among the bonus things you’ll find is our talk from the Marlborough Literary Festival!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Julia by Sandra Newman

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Catherine Carter by Pamela Hansford Johnson

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Jane Gardam

Diaries by Virginia Woolf

Miss Read

Emma by Jane Austen

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield

P.G. Wodehouse

Agatha Christie

Margery Sharp

Val McDermid

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Dorothy Whipple

A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge

The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning

Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson

For Every Favour by Ruby Ferguson

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Turn Again Home by Ruby Ferguson

Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott

The Group by Mary McCarthy

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning