Celia Dale! Bernice Rubens! Stupidity! Welcome to episode 142 of Tea or Books?

In the first half of the episode, we ask if we can like characters in novels who make stupid decisions. In the second half, we compare Other People by Celia Dale and A Five Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens.

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You can support the podcast at Patreon – where you’ll also get access to the exclusive new series ‘5 Books’, where I ask different people about the last book they finished, the book they’re currently reading, the next book they want to read, the last book they bought and the last book they were given.

The books and authors we mention:

Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence (ill. by Lucille Clerc)

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie

‘The Garden Party’ by Katherine Mansfield

Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton

Hope Never Knew Horizon by Douglas Bruton

The Truth About Blayds by A.A. Milne

The Dover Road by A.A. Milne

They Came To Baghdad by Agatha Christie

Honourable Estate by Vera Brittain

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Daisy’s Aunt by E.F. Benson

Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins

P.G. Wodehouse

Margery Sharp

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

A Pin To See The Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse

Oscar Wilde

A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Peter Pan  by J.M. Barrie

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

Crooked Cross by Sally Carson

Autumn by Ali Smith

The Performance by Claire Thomas

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

William’s Wife by Gertrude Trevelyan

The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks

My Darling Villain by Lynne Reid Banks

Fear Stalks The Village by Ethel Lina White