Emile Zola, Noel Streatfeild, and romantic books – welcome to Tea or Books? episode 130!

In the first half of this episode, we do a topic suggested by Lindsey – do books need a romantic storyline? In the second half, we compare two novels set in department stores – The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola (both of us read the translation by Brian Nelson) and Babbcombe’s by Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfeild.

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. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us.

Please come and see us talking about the British Library Women Writers series at the Marlborough Literary Festival on 29 September! And you can find out more about End Sexism in Schools at their website.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

Timebends by Arthur Miller

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

Unless by Carol Shields

Larry’s Party by Carol Shields

Rereadings ed. by Anne Fadiman

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

High Wages by Dorothy Whipple

Babbett by Stella Gibbons

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Love-Child by Edith Olivier

The Provincial Lady Goes Further by E.M. Delafield

The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski

Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Emma by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Anthony Trollope

Zadie Smith

Ian McEwan

Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

Sally Rooney

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Translations by Brian Friel

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Strangers by Taichi Yamada

One Year’s Time by Angela Milne

Which Way? by Theodora Benson