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