Podcasts about Nancy Mitford

Send us a textIn this follow-up to our 2021 episode on Nancy Mitford, we're turning the spotlight on her younger sister, Jessica (a.k.a. “Decca”) Mitford, an activist and journalist whom Time magazine called “the queen of the muckrakers.” Her influential 1963 nonfiction title The American Way of Death exposed corruption in the funeral industry and was lauded by David Bowie as one of his “Top 100” favorite books, whereas her 1960 childhood memoir, Hons and Rebels, left her own family seeing red! Joining us in conversation is Mimi Pond, whose recently-published graphic biography Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me adds new color (literally) to the Mitford mythology with wry commentary and artwork perfectly suited to England's most outrageous debutantes.Mentioned in this episode:Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi PondHons and Rebels by Jessica MitfordThe American Way of Death by Jessica MitfordDavid Bowie's Top 100 Favorite BooksThe Pursuit of Love by Nancy MitfordLife in A Cold Climate by Laura ThompsonDecca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford edited by Peter Y. SussmanLifeitselfmanship: Or, How to Become a Precisely Because Man by Jessica MitfordLost Ladies of Lit Episode No 39 on Nancy MitfordLost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 65 on Lucia BerlinLost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 187 on Kay BoyleNancy Mitford: A Portrait by Her Sisters documentary Asthall ManorChatsworth HouseSupport the showFor episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.comSubscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

For most people, home represents comfort, safety, maybe family. It's the place where you can be yourself — and where you keep all your stuff. For the wealthy, the right home can mean status, reputation, and legacy, especially in the UK. For hundreds of years, the traditional English manor was more than simply a big house staffed with servants. It was a grand home situated on farmland owned by the family. In addition to being a showpiece, it was a responsibility. The US equivalent is a Gilded Age mansion, minus the need to worry about the welfare of tenants. Those 20th-century robber barons could simply count their money and throw lavish dinner parties. And in Europe, the history and luxurious accommodations come in the form of palaces, chateaux, castles, palazzos, and other opulent estates. In this episode, we explore the house -as-character in books by iconic authors, including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Nancy Mitford, and a gaggle of Gothic writers. We also delve into the real secrets of the Winchester Mystery House and meet the various ghosts haunting British country piles. Then we recommend many books we love set in notable manor homes, including: The Original by Nell Stevens The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker — and the audiobook The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver — and the audiobook For more on the books we recommend, plus the other cool stuff we talk about, visit show notes. Sign up for our free Substack to connect with us and other lovely readers who are curious about the world. Transcript of Manor House: The Fall of the House of… Almost Everyone, Really Do you enjoy our show? Do you want access to awesome bonus content? Please support our work on Patreon! Strong Sense of Place is an audience-funded endeavor, and we need your support to continue making this show. Get all the info you need right here. Thank you! Parts of the Strong Sense of Place podcast are produced in udio. Some effects are provided by soundly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BALTSCHEV, Bettina www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

BALTSCHEV, Bettina www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

BALTSCHEV, Bettina www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

BALTSCHEV, Bettina www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

Nancy Mitford: Englische Liebschaften | Aus dem Englischen von Reinhard Kaiser | Schöffling & Co. 2025 | Preis: 24 Euro Von der hr2-Partnerbuchhandlung „Vaternahm“ in Wiesbaden

Bessie Carter (Prudence Featherington, Bridgerton) joins host Reshma Gopaldas and guest co-host Sarene Leeds to talk all about her role as Nancy Mitford in Britbox's series Outrageous. Bessie is currently also starring in Mrs. Warren's Profession in London with her mother, Imelda Staunton (The Crown, Harry Potter).Bessie breaks down Outrageous, from working with her talented co-stars, and what it was like to portray oldest Mitford sister, who was part of a historically controversial family who rose to fame during WW2. Their story begins in the late 1930s, and chronicles the sisters alongside the rise of fascism. Bessie reveals what it was like growing up in a family of actors, the concept of nepo babies, and says when it comes to Bridgerton spoilers, she's too afraid that Netflix might have spies all around. Joanna Vanderham plays Diana Mitford, Shannon Watson plays Unity Mitford, Zoe Brough plays Jessica Mitford, Isobel Jasper Jones plays Pamela Mitford, Toby Regbo plays Thomas, and Orla Hill who plays Deborah Mitford. James Purefoy plays David Mitford, Lord Redesdale and Anna Chancellor plays Sydney Freeman Mitford. Created by Sarah Williams and executive produced by Matthew Mosley, Outrageous is streaming now on Britbox.Follow Bessie Carter on Instagram. If you're in London, Bessie is starring in Mrs. Warren's Profession at the Garrick Theater. Follow Sarene Leeds on Instagram or subscribe to her Substack: The Critical Communicator.Son of a Binge production credits:Hosted by: Reshma Gopaldas (TW: @reshingbull, IG @reshmago)Producer: Emily Collins (IG @emilem124)Artwork by: Laura Valencia (IG @iamlauravalencia)Music by: Kevin Calaba (IG @airlandsmusic)Send us a text, let us know what shows and guests you want us to cover.

Frances Wilson has written biographies of Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, D.H. Lawrence, and, most recently, Muriel Spark. I thought Electric Spark was excellent. In my review, I wrote: “Wilson has done far more than string the facts together. She has created a strange and vivid portrait of one of the most curious of twentieth century novelists.” In this interview, we covered questions like why Thomas De Quincey is more widely read, why D.H. Lawrence's best books aren't his novels, Frances's conversion to spookiness, what she thinks about a whole range of modern biographers, literature and parasocial relationships, Elizabeth Bowen, George Meredith, and plenty about Muriel Spark.Here are two brief extracts. There is a full transcript below.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?And.Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking to Frances Wilson. Frances is a biographer. Her latest book, Electric Spark, is a biography of the novelist Muriel Spark, but she has also written about Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, DH Lawrence and others. Frances, welcome.Frances Wilson: Thank you so much for having me on.Henry: Why don't more people read Thomas De Quincey's work?Frances: [laughs] Oh, God. We're going right into the deep end.[laughter]Frances: I think because there's too much of it. When I chose to write about Thomas De Quincey, I just followed one thread in his writing because Thomas De Quincey was an addict. One of the things he was addicted to was writing. He wrote far, far, far too much. He was a professional hack. He was a transcendental hack, if you like, because all of his writing he did while on opium, which made the sentences too long and too high and very, very hard to read.When I wrote about him, I just followed his interest in murder. He was fascinated by murder as a fine art. The title of one of his best essays is On Murder as One of the Fine Arts. I was also interested in his relationship with Wordsworth. I twinned those together, which meant cutting out about 97% of the rest of his work. I think people do read his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I think that's a cult text. It was the memoir, if you want to call it a memoir, that kick-started the whole pharmaceutical memoir business on drugs.It was also the first addict's memoir and the first recovery memoir, and I'd say also the first misery memoir. He's very much at the root of English literary culture. We're all De Quincey-an without knowing it, is my argument.Henry: Oh, no, I fully agree. That's what surprises me, that they don't read him more often.Frances: I know it's a shame, isn't it? Of all the Romantic Circle, he's the one who's the most exciting to read. Also, Lamb is wonderfully exciting to read as well, but Lamb's a tiny little bit more grounded than De Quincey, who was literally not grounded. He's floating in an opium haze above you.[laughter]Henry: What I liked about your book was the way you emphasized the book addiction, not just the opium addiction. It is shocking the way he piled up chests full of books and notebooks, and couldn't get into the room because there were too many books in there. He was [crosstalk].Frances: Yes. He had this in common with Muriel Spark. He was a hoarder, but in a much more chaotic way than Spark, because, as you say, he piled up rooms with papers and books until he couldn't get into the room, and so just rented another room. He was someone who had no money at all. The no money he had went on paying rent for rooms, storing what we would be giving to Oxfam, or putting in the recycling bin. Then he'd forget that he was paying rent on all these rooms filled with his mountains of paper. The man was chaos.Henry: What is D.H. Lawrence's best book?Frances: Oh, my argument about Lawrence is that we've gone very badly wrong in our reading of him, in seeing him primarily as a novelist and only secondarily as an essayist and critic and short story writer, and poet. This is because of F.R. Leavis writing that celebration of him called D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, because novels are not the best of Lawrence. I think the best of his novels is absolutely, without doubt, Sons and Lovers. I think we should put the novels in the margins and put in the centre, the poems, travel writing.Absolutely at the centre of the centre should be his studies in classic American literature. His criticism was- We still haven't come to terms with it. It was so good. We haven't heard all of Lawrence's various voices yet. When Lawrence was writing, contemporaries didn't think of Lawrence as a novelist at all. It was anyone's guess what he was going to come out with next. Sometimes it was a novel [laughs] and it was usually a rant about-- sometimes it was a prophecy. Posterity has not treated Lawrence well in any way, but I think where we've been most savage to him is in marginalizing his best writing.Henry: The short fiction is truly extraordinary.Frances: Isn't it?Henry: I always thought Lawrence was someone I didn't want to read, and then I read the short fiction, and I was just obsessed.Frances: It's because in the short fiction, he doesn't have time to go wrong. I think brevity was his perfect length. Give him too much space, and you know he's going to get on his soapbox and start ranting, start mansplaining. He was a terrible mansplainer. Mansplaining his versions of what had gone wrong in the world. It is like a drunk at the end of a too-long dinner party, and you really want to just bundle him out. Give him only a tiny bit of space, and he comes out with the perfection that is his writing.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?Frances: I think that the way I approach biography is that there is a code to crack, but I'm not necessarily concerned with whether I crack it or not. I think it's just recognizing that there's a hell of a lot going on in the writing and that, in certain cases and not in every case at all, the best way of exploring the psyche of the writer and the complexity of the life is through the writing, which is a argument for psycho biography, which isn't something I necessarily would argue for, because it can be very, very crude.I think with the writers I choose, there is no option. Muriel Spark argued for this as well. She said in her own work as a biographer, which was really very, very strong. She was a biographer before she became a novelist. She thought hard about biography and absolutely in advance of anyone else who thought about biography, she said, "Of course, the only way we can approach the minds of writers is through their work, and the writer's life is encoded in the concerns of their work."When I was writing about Muriel Spark, I followed, as much as I could, to the letter, her own theories of biography, believing that that was part of the code that she left. She said very, very strong and very definitive things about what biography was about and how to write a biography. I tried to follow those rules.Henry: Can we play a little game where I say the names of some biographers and you tell me what you think of them?Frances: Oh my goodness. Okay.Henry: We're not trying to get you into trouble. We just want some quick opinions. A.N. Wilson.Frances: I think he's wonderful as a biographer. I think he's unzipped and he's enthusiastic and he's unpredictable and he's often off the rails. I think his Goethe biography-- Have you read the Goethe biography?Henry: Yes, I thought that was great.Frances: It's just great, isn't it? It's so exciting. I like the way that when he writes about someone, it's almost as if he's memorized the whole of their work.Henry: Yes.Frances: You don't imagine him sitting at a desk piled with books and having to score through his marginalia. It sits in his head, and he just pours it down on a page. I'm always excited by an A.N. Wilson biography. He is one of the few biographers who I would read regardless of who the subject was.Henry: Yes.Frances: I just want to read him.Henry: He does have good range.Frances: He absolutely does have good range.Henry: Selina Hastings.Frances: I was thinking about Selina Hastings this morning, funnily enough, because I had been talking to people over the weekend about her Sybil Bedford biography and why that hadn't lifted. She wrote a very excitingly good life of Nancy Mitford and then a very unexcitingly not good life of Sybil Bedford. I was interested in why the Sybil Bedford simply hadn't worked. I met people this weekend who were saying the same thing, that she was a very good biographer who had just failed [laughs] to give us anything about Sybil Bedford.I think what went wrong in that biography was that she just could not give us her opinions. It's as if she just withdrew from her subject as if she was writing a Wikipedia entry. There were no opinions at all. What the friends I was talking to said was that she just fell out with her subject during the book. That's what happened. She stopped being interested in her. She fell out with her and therefore couldn't be bothered. That's what went wrong.Henry: Interesting. I think her Evelyn Waugh biography is superb.Frances: Yes, I absolutely agree. She was on fire until this last one.Henry: That's one of the best books on Waugh, I think.Frances: Yes.Henry: Absolutely magical.Frances: I also remember, it's a very rare thing, of reading a review of it by Hilary Mantel saying that she had not read a biography that had been as good, ever, as Selina Hastings' on Evelyn Waugh. My goodness, that's high praise, isn't it?Henry: Yes, it is. It is. I'm always trying to push that book on people. Richard Holmes.Frances: He's my favourite. He's the reason that I'm a biographer at all. I think his Coleridge, especially the first volume of the two-volume Coleridge, is one of the great books. It left me breathless when I read it. It was devastating. I also think that his Johnson and Savage book is one of the great books. I love Footsteps as well, his account of the books he didn't write in Footsteps. I think he has a strange magic. When Muriel Spark talked about certain writers and critics having a sixth literary sense, which meant that they tuned into language and thought in a way that the rest of us don't, I think that Richard Holmes does have that. I think he absolutely has it in relation to Coleridge. I'm longing for his Tennyson to come out.Henry: Oh, I know. I know.Frances: Oh, I just can't wait. I'm holding off on reading Tennyson until I've got Holmes to help me read him. Yes, he is quite extraordinary.Henry: I would have given my finger to write the Johnson and Savage book.Frances: Yes, I know. I agree. How often do you return to it?Henry: Oh, all the time. All the time.Frances: Me too.Henry: Michael Holroyd.Frances: Oh, that's interesting, Michael Holroyd, because I think he's one of the great unreads. I think he's in this strange position of being known as a greatest living biographer, but nobody's read him on Augustus John. [laughs] I haven't read his biographies cover to cover because they're too long and it's not in my subject area, but I do look in them, and they're novelistic in their wit and complexity. His sentences are very, very, very entertaining, and there's a lot of freight in each paragraph. I hope that he keeps selling.I love his essays as well, and also, I think that he has been a wonderful ambassador for biography. He's very, very supportive of younger biographers, which not every biographer is, but I know he's been very supportive of younger biographers and is incredibly approachable.Henry: Let's do a few Muriel Spark questions. Why was the Book of Job so important to Muriel Spark?Frances: I think she liked it because it was rogue, because it was the only book of the Bible that wasn't based on any evidence, it wasn't based on any truth. It was a fictional book, and she liked fiction sitting in the middle of fact. That was one of her main things, as all Spark lovers know. She liked the fact that there was this work of pure imagination and extraordinarily powerful imagination sitting in the middle of the Old Testament, and also, she thought it was an absolutely magnificent poem.She saw herself primarily as a poet, and she responded to it as a poem, which, of course, it is. Also, she liked God in it. She described Him as the Incredible Hulk [laughs] and she liked His boastfulness. She enjoyed, as I do, difficult personalities, and she liked the fact that God had such an incredibly difficult personality. She liked the fact that God boasted and boasted and boasted, "I made this and I made that," to Job, but also I think she liked the fact that you hear God's voice.She was much more interested in voices than she was in faces. The fact that God's voice comes out of the burning bush, I think it was an image for her of early radio, this voice speaking, and she liked the fact that what the voice said was tricksy and touchy and impossibly arrogant. He gives Moses all these instructions to lead the Israelites, and Moses says, "But who shall I say sent me? Who are you?" He says, "I am who I am." [laughs] She thought that was completely wonderful. She quotes that all the time about herself. She says, "I know it's a bit large quoting God, but I am who I am." [laughs]Henry: That disembodied voice is very important to her fiction.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's the telephone in Memento Mori.Frances: Yes.Henry: Also, to some extent, tell me what you think of this, the narrator often acts like that.Frances: Like this disembodied voice?Henry: Yes, like you're supposed to feel like you're not quite sure who's telling you this or where you're being told it from. That's why it gets, like in The Ballad of Peckham Rye or something, very weird.Frances: Yes. I'm waiting for the PhD on Muriel Sparks' narrators. Maybe it's being done as we speak, but she's very, very interested in narrators and the difference between first-person and third-person. She was very keen on not having warm narrators, to put it mildly. She makes a strong argument throughout her work for the absence of the seductive narrative. Her narratives are, as we know, unbelievably seductive, but not because we are being flattered as readers and not because the narrator makes herself or himself pretty. The narrator says what they feel like saying, withholds most of what you would like them to say, plays with us, like in a Spark expression, describing her ideal narrator like a cat with a bird [laughs].Henry: I like that. Could she have been a novelist if she had not become a Catholic?Frances: No, she couldn't. The two things happened at the same time. I wonder, actually, whether she became a Catholic in order to become a novelist. It wasn't that becoming a novelist was an accidental effect of being a Catholic. The conversion was, I think, from being a biographer to a novelist rather than from being an Anglican to a Catholic. What happened is a tremendous interest. I think it's the most interesting moment in any life that I've ever written about is the moment of Sparks' conversion because it did break her life in two.She converted when she was in her mid-30s, and several things happened at once. She converted to Catholicism, she became a Catholic, she became a novelist, but she also had this breakdown. The breakdown was very much part of that conversion package. The breakdown was brought on, she says, by taking Dexys. There was slimming pills, amphetamines. She wanted to lose weight. She put on weight very easily, and her weight went up and down throughout her life.She wanted to take these diet pills, but I think she was also taking the pills because she needed to do all-nighters, because she never, ever, ever stopped working. She was addicted to writing, but also she was impoverished and she had to sell her work, and she worked all night. She was in a rush to get her writing done because she'd wasted so much of her life in her early 20s, in a bad marriage trapped in Africa. She needed to buy herself time. She was on these pills, which have terrible side effects, one of which is hallucinations.I think there were other reasons for her breakdown as well. She was very, very sensitive and I think psychologically fragile. Her mother lived in a state of mental fragility, too. She had a crash when she finished her book. She became depressed. Of course, a breakdown isn't the same as depression, but what happened to her in her breakdown was a paranoid attack rather than a breakdown. She didn't crack into nothing and then have to rebuild herself. She just became very paranoid. That paranoia was always there.Again, it's what's exciting about her writing. She was drawn to paranoia in other writers. She liked Cardinal Newman's paranoia. She liked Charlotte Brontë's paranoia, and she had paranoia. During her paranoid attack, she felt very, very interestingly, because nothing that happened in her life was not interesting, that T.S. Eliot was sending her coded messages. He was encoding these messages in his play, The Confidential Clerk, in the program notes to the play, but also in the blurbs he wrote for Faber and Faber, where he was an editor. These messages were very malign and they were encoded in anagrams.The word lived, for example, became devil. I wonder whether one of the things that happened during her breakdown wasn't that she discovered God, but that she met the devil. I don't think that that's unusual as a conversion experience. In fact, the only conversion experience she ever describes, you'll remember, is in The Girls of Slender Means, when she's describing Nicholas Farrington's conversion. That's the only conversion experience she ever describes. She says that his conversion is when he sees one of the girls leaving the burning building, holding a Schiaparelli dress. Suddenly, he's converted because he's seen a vision of evil.She says, "Conversion can be as a result of a recognition of evil, rather than a recognition of good." I think that what might have happened in this big cocktail of things that happened to her during her breakdown/conversion, is that a writer whom she had idolized, T.S. Eliot, who taught her everything that she needed to know about the impersonality of art. Her narrative coldness comes from Eliot, who thought that emotions had no place in art because they were messy, and art should be clean.I think a writer whom she had idolized, she suddenly felt was her enemy because she was converting from his church, because he was an Anglo-Catholic. He was a high Anglican, and she was leaving Anglo-Catholicism to go through the Rubicon, to cross the Rubicon into Catholicism. She felt very strongly that that is something he would not have approved of.Henry: She's also leaving poetry to become a prose writer.Frances: She was leaving his world of poetry. That's absolutely right.Henry: This is a very curious parallel because the same thing exactly happens to De Quincey with his worship of Wordsworth.Frances: You're right.Henry: They have the same obsessive mania. Then this, as you say, not quite a breakdown, but a kind of explosive mania in the break. De Quincey goes out and destroys that mossy hut or whatever it is in the orchard, doesn't he?Frances: Yes, that disgusting hut in the orchard. Yes, you're completely right. What fascinated me about De Quincey, and this was at the heart of the De Quincey book, was how he had been guided his whole life by Wordsworth. He discovered Wordsworth as a boy when he read We Are Seven, that very creepy poem about a little girl sitting on her sibling's grave, describing the sibling as still alive. For De Quincey, who had lost his very adored sister, he felt that Wordsworth had seen into his soul and that Wordsworth was his mentor and his lodestar.He worshipped Wordsworth as someone who understood him and stalked Wordsworth, pursued and stalked him. When he met him, what he discovered was a man without any redeeming qualities at all. He thought he was a dry monster, but it didn't stop him loving the work. In fact, he loved the work more and more. What threw De Quincey completely was that there was such a difference between Wordsworth, the man who had no genius, and Wordsworth, the poet who had nothing but.Eliot described it, the difference between the man who suffers and the mind which creates. What De Quincey was trying to deal with was the fact that he adulated the work, but was absolutely appalled by the man. Yes, you're right, this same experience happened to spark when she began to feel that T.S. Eliot, whom she had never met, was a malign person, but the work was still not only of immense importance to her, but the work had formed her.Henry: You see the Wasteland all over her own work and the shared Dante obsession.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's remarkably strong. She got to the point of thinking that T.S. Eliot was breaking into her house.Frances: Yes. As I said, she had this paranoid imagination, but also what fired her imagination and what repeated itself again and again in the imaginative scenarios that recur in her fiction and nonfiction is the idea of the intruder. It was the image of someone rifling around in cupboards, drawers, looking at manuscripts. This image, you first find it in a piece she wrote about finding herself completely coincidentally, staying the night during the war in the poet Louis MacNeice's house. She didn't know it was Louis MacNeice's house, but he was a poet who was very, very important to her.Spark's coming back from visiting her parents in Edinburgh in 1944. She gets talking to an au pair on the train. By the time they pull into Houston, there's an air raid, and the au pair says, "Come and spend the night at mine. My employers are away and they live nearby in St. John's Wood." Spark goes to this house and sees it's packed with books and papers, and she's fascinated by the quality of the material she finds there.She looks in all the books. She goes into the attic, and she looks at all the papers, and she asks the au pair whose house it is, and the au pair said, "Oh, he's a professor called Professor Louis MacNeice." Spark had just been reading Whitney. He's one of her favourite poets. She retells this story four times in four different forms, as non-fiction, as fiction, as a broadcast, as reflections, but the image that keeps coming back, what she can't get rid of, is the idea of herself as snooping around in this poet's study.She describes herself, in one of the versions, as trying to draw from his papers his power as a writer. She says she sniffs his pens, she puts her hands over his papers, telling herself, "I must become a writer. I must become a writer." Then she makes this weird anonymous phone call. She loved the phone because it was the most strange form of electrical device. She makes a weird anonymous phone call to an agent, saying, "I'm ringing from Louis MacNeice's house, would you like to see my manuscript?" She doesn't give her name, and the agent says yes.Now I don't believe this phone call took place. I think it's part of Sparks' imagination. This idea of someone snooping around in someone else's room was very, very powerful to her. Then she transposed it in her paranoid attack about T.S. Eliot. She transposed the image that Eliot was now in her house, but not going through her papers, but going through her food cupboards. [laughs] In her food cupboards, all she actually had was baked beans because she was a terrible cook. Part of her unwellness at that point was malnutrition. No, she thought that T.S. Eliot was spying on her. She was obsessed with spies. Spies, snoopers, blackmailers.Henry: T.S. Eliot is Stealing My Baked Beans would have been a very good title for a memoir.Frances: It actually would, wouldn't it?Henry: Yes, it'd be great.[laughter]Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now. Anything can happen. This is one of the reasons Spark was attracted to Catholicism because anything can happen, because it legitimizes the supernatural. I felt so strongly that the supernatural experiences that Spark had were real, that what Spark was describing as the spookiness of our own life were things that actually happened.One of the things I found very, very unsettling about her was that everything that happened to her, she had written about first. She didn't describe her experiences in retrospect. She described them as in foresight. For example, her first single authored published book, because she wrote for a while in collaboration with her lover, Derek Stanford, but her first single authored book was a biography of Mary Shelley.Henry: Great book.Frances: An absolutely wonderful book, which really should be better than any of the other Mary Shelley biographies. She completely got to Mary Shelley. Everything she described in Mary Shelley's life would then happen to Spark. For example, she described Mary Shelley as having her love letters sold. Her lover sold Mary Shelley's love letters, and Mary Shelley was then blackmailed by the person who bought them. This happened to Spark. She described Mary Shelley's closest friends all becoming incredibly jealous of her literary talent. This happened to Spark. She described trusting people who betrayed her. This happened to Spark.Spark was the first person to write about Frankenstein seriously, to treat Frankenstein as a masterpiece rather than as a one-off weird novel that is actually just the screenplay for a Hammer Horror film. This was 1951, remember. Everything she described in Frankenstein as its power is a hybrid text, described the powerful hybrid text that she would later write about. What fascinated her in Frankenstein was the relationship between the creator and the monster, and which one was the monster. This is exactly the story of her own life. I think where she is. She was really interested in art monsters and in the fact that the only powerful writers out there, the only writers who make a dent, are monsters.If you're not a monster, you're just not competing. I think Spark has always spoken about as having a monster-like quality. She says at the end of one of her short stories, Bang-bang You're Dead, "Am I an intellectual woman, or am I a monster?" It's the question that is frequently asked of Spark. I think she worked so hard to monsterize herself. Again, she learnt this from Elliot. She learnt her coldness from Elliot. She learnt indifference from Elliot. There's a very good letter where she's writing to a friend, Shirley Hazzard, in New York.It's after she discovers that her lover, Derek Stanford, has sold her love letters, 70 love letters, which describe two very, very painfully raw, very tender love letters. She describes to Shirley Hazzard this terrible betrayal. She says, "But, I'm over it. I'm over it now. Now I'm just going to be indifferent." She's telling herself to just be indifferent about this. You watch her tutoring herself into the indifference that she needed in order to become the artist that she knew she was.Henry: Is this why she's attracted to mediocrities, because she can possess them and monsterize them, and they're good feeding for her artistic programme?Frances: Her attraction to mediocrities is completely baffling, and it makes writing her biography, a comedy, because the men she was surrounded by were so speck-like. Saw themselves as so important, but were, in fact, so speck-like that you have to laugh, and it was one after another after another. I'd never come across, in my life, so many men I'd never heard of. This was the literary world that she was surrounded by. It's odd, I don't know whether, at the time, she knew how mediocre these mediocrities were.She certainly recognised it in her novels where they're all put together into one corporate personality called the pisseur de copie in A Far Cry from Kensington, where every single literary mediocrity is in that critic who she describes as pissing and vomiting out copy. With Derek Stanford, who was obviously no one's ever heard of now, because he wrote nothing that was memorable, he was her partner from the end of the 40s until-- They ceased their sexual relationship when she started to be interested in becoming a Catholic in 1953, but she was devoted to him up until 1958. She seemed to be completely incapable of recognising that she had the genius and he had none.Her letters to him deferred to him, all the time, as having literary powers that she hadn't got, as having insights that she hadn't got, he's better read than she was. She was such an amazingly good critic. Why could she not see when she looked at his baggy, bad prose that it wasn't good enough? She rated him so highly. When she was co-authoring books with him, which was how she started her literary career, they would occasionally write alternative sentences. Some of her sentences are always absolutely-- they're sharp, lean, sparkling, and witty, and his are way too long and really baggy and they don't say anything. Obviously, you can see that she's irritated by it.She still doesn't say, "Look, I'm going now." It was only when she became a novelist that she said, "I want my mind to myself." She puts, "I want my mind to myself." She didn't want to be in a double act with him. Doubles were important to her. She didn't want to be in a double act with him anymore. He obviously had bought into her adulation of him and hadn't recognised that she had this terrifying power as a writer. It was now his turn to have the breakdown. Spark had the mental breakdown in 1950, '45. When her first novel came out in 1957, it was Stanford who had the breakdown because he couldn't take on board who she was as a novelist.What he didn't know about her as a novelist was her comic sense, how that would fuel the fiction, but also, he didn't recognize because he reviewed her books badly. He didn't recognise that the woman who had been so tender, vulnerable, and loving with him could be this novelist who had nothing to say about tenderness or love. In his reviews, he says, "Why are her characters so cold?" because he thought that she should be writing from the core of her as a human being rather than the core of her as an intellect.Henry: What are her best novels?Frances: Every one I read, I think this has to be the best.[laughter]This is particularly the case in the early novels, where I'm dazzled by The Comforters and think there cannot have been a better first novel of the 20th century or even the 21st century so far. The Comforters. Then read Robinson, her second novel, and think, "Oh God, no, that is her best novel. Then Memento Mori, I think, "Actually, that must be the best novel of the 20th century." [laughs] Then you move on to The Ballad of Peckham Rye, I think, "No, that's even better."The novels landed. It's one of the strange things about her; it took her so long to become a novelist. When she had become one, the novels just landed. Once in one year, two novels landed. In 1959, she had, it was The Bachelors and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, both just completely extraordinary. The novels had been the storing up, and then they just fell on the page. They're different, but samey. They're samey in as much as they're very, very, very clever. They're clever about Catholicism, and they have the same narrative wit. My God, do the plots work in different ways. She was wonderful at plots. She was a great plotter. She liked plots in both senses of the world.She liked the idea of plotting against someone, also laying a plot. She was, at the same time, absolutely horrified by being caught inside someone's plot. That's what The Comforters is about, a young writer called Caroline Rose, who has a breakdown, it's a dramatisation of Sparks' own breakdown, who has a breakdown, and believes that she is caught inside someone else's story. She is a typewriter repeating all of her thoughts. Typewriter and a chorus repeating all of her thoughts.What people say about The Comforters is that Caroline Rose thought she is a heroine of a novel who finds herself trapped in a novel. Actually, if you read what Caroline Rose says in the novel, she doesn't think she's trapped in a novel; she thinks she's trapped in a biography. "There is a typewriter typing the story of our lives," she says to her boyfriend. "Of our lives." Muriel Sparks' first book was about being trapped in a biography, which is, of course, what she brought on herself when she decided to trap herself in a biography. [laughs]Henry: I think I would vote for Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means as my favourites. I can see that Memento Mori is a good book, but I don't love it, actually.Frances: Really? Interesting. Okay. I completely agree with you about-- I think Loitering with Intent is my overall favourite. Don't you find every time you read it, it's a different book? There are about 12 books I've discovered so far in that book. She loved books inside books, but every time I read it, I think, "Oh my God, it's changed shape again. It's a shape-shifting novel."Henry: We all now need the Frances Wilson essay about the 12 books inside Loitering with Intent.Frances: I know.[laughter]Henry: A few more general questions to close. Did Thomas De Quincey waste his talents?Frances: I wouldn't have said so. I think that's because every single day of his life, he was on opium.Henry: I think the argument is a combination of too much opium and also too much magazine work and not enough "real serious" philosophy, big poems, whatever.Frances: I think the best of his work went into Blackwood's, so the magazine work. When he was taken on by Blackwood's, the razor-sharp Edinburgh magazine, then the best of his work took place. I think that had he only written the murder essays, that would have been enough for me, On Murder as a Fine Art.That was enough. I don't need any more of De Quincey. I think Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is also enough in as much as it's the great memoir of addiction. We don't need any more memoirs of addiction, just read that. It's not just a memoir of being addicted to opium. It's about being addicted to what's what. It's about being a super fan and addicted to writing. He was addicted to everything. If he was in AA now, they'd say, apparently, there are 12 addictions, he had all of them. [laughs]Henry: Yes. People talk a lot about parasocial relationships online, where you read someone online or you follow them, and you have this strange idea in your head that you know them in some way, even though they're just this disembodied online person. You sometimes see people say, "Oh, we should understand this more." I think, "Well, read the history of literature, parasocial relationships everywhere."Frances: That's completely true. I hadn't heard that term before. The history of literature, a parasocial relationship. That's your next book.Henry: There we go. I think what I want from De Quincey is more about Shakespeare, because I think the Macbeth essay is superb.Frances: Absolutely brilliant. On Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.Henry: Yes, and then you think, "Wait, where's the rest of this book? There should be an essay about every play."Frances: That's an absolutely brilliant example of microhistory, isn't it? Just taking a moment in a play, just the knocking at the gate, the morning after the murders, and blowing that moment up, so it becomes the whole play. Oh, my God, it's good. You're right.Henry: It's so good. What is, I think, "important about it", is that in the 20th century, critics started saying or scholars started saying a lot, "We can't just look at the words on the page. We've got to think about the dramaturgy. We've got to really, really think about how it plays out." De Quincey was an absolute master of that. It's really brilliant.Frances: Yes.Henry: What's your favourite modern novel or novelist?Frances: Oh, Hilary Mantel, without doubt, I think. I think we were lucky enough to live alongside a great, great, great novelist. I think the Wolf Hall trilogy is absolutely the greatest piece of narrative fiction that's come out of the 21st century. I also love her. I love her work as an essayist. I love her. She's spooky like Spark. She was inspired.Henry: Yes, she is. Yes.Frances: She learnt a lot of her cunning from Spark, I think. She's written a very spooky memoir. In fact, the only women novelists who acknowledge Spark as their influencer are Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel, although you can see Spark in William Boyd all the time. I think we're pretty lucky to live alongside William Boyd as well. Looking for real, real greatness, I think there's no one to compare with Mantel. Do you agree?Henry: I don't like the third volume of the trilogy.Frances: Okay. Right.Henry: Yes, in general, I do agree. Yes. I think some people don't like historical fiction for a variety of reasons. It may take some time for her to get it. I think she's acknowledged as being really good. I don't know that she's yet acknowledged at the level that you're saying.Frances: Yes.Henry: I think that will take a little bit longer. Maybe as and when there's a biography that will help with that, which I'm sure there will be a biography.Frances: I think they need to wait. I do think it's important to wait for a reputation to settle before starting the biography. Her biography will be very interesting because she married the same man twice. Her growth as a novelist was so extraordinary. Spark, she spent time in Africa. She had this terrible, terrible illness. She knew something. I think what I love about Mantel is, as with Spark, she knew something. She knew something, and she didn't quite know what it was that she knew. She had to write because of this knowledge. When you read her, you know that she's on a different level of understanding.Henry: You specialise in slightly neglected figures of English literature. Who else among the canonical writers deserves a bit more attention?Frances: Oh, that's interesting. I love minor characters. I think Spark was very witty about describing herself as a minor novelist or a writer of minor novels when she was evidently major. She always saw the comedy in being a minor. All the minor writers interest me. Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green. No, they have heard Elizabeth Bowen has been treated well by Hermione Lee and Henry Green has been treated well by Jeremy Treglown.Why are they not up there yet? They're so much better than most of their contemporaries. I am mystified and fascinated by why it is that the most powerful writers tend to be kicked into the long grass. It's dazzling. When you read a Henry Green novel, you think, "But this is what it's all about. He's understood everything about what the novel can do. Why has no one heard of him?"Henry: I think Elizabeth Bowen's problem is that she's so concise, dense, and well-structured, and everything really plays its part in the pattern of the whole that it's not breezy reading.Frances: No, it's absolutely not.Henry: I think that probably holds her back in some way, even though when I have pushed it on people, most of the time they've said, "Gosh, she's a genius."Frances: Yes.Henry: It's not an easy genius. Whereas Dickens, the pages sort of fly along, something like that.Frances: Yes. One of the really interesting things about Spark is that she really, really is easy reading. At the same time, there's so much freight in those books. There's so much intellectual weight and so many games being played. There's so many books inside the books. Yet you can just read them for the pleasure. You can just read them for the plot. You can read one in an afternoon and think that you've been lost inside a book for 10 years. You don't get that from Elizabeth Bowen. That's true. The novels, you feel the weight, don't you?Henry: Yes.Frances: She's Jamesian. She's more Jamesian, I think, than Spark is.Henry: Something like A World of Love, it requires quite a lot of you.Frances: Yes, it does. Yes, it's not bedtime reading.Henry: No, exactly.Frances: Sitting up in a library.Henry: Yes. Now, you mentioned James. You're a Henry James expert.Frances: I did my PhD on Henry James.Henry: Yes. Will you ever write about him?Frances: I have, actually. Just a little plug. I've just done a selection of James's short stories, three volumes, which are coming out, I think, later this year for Riverrun with a separate introduction for each volume. I think that's all the writing I'm going to do on James. When I was an academic, I did some academic essays on him for collections and things. No, I've never felt, ever, ready to write on James because he's too complicated. I can only take tiny, tiny bits of James and home in on them.Henry: He's a great one for trying to crack the code.Frances: He really is. In fact, I was struck all the way through writing Electric Spark by James's understanding of the comedy of biography, which is described in the figure in the carpet. Remember that wonderful story where there's a writer called Verica who explains to a young critic that none of the critics have understood what his work's about. Everything that's written about him, it's fine, but it's absolutely missed his main point, his beautiful point. He said that in order to understand what the work's about, you have to look for The Figure in the Carpet. It's The Figure in the CarpetIt's the string on which my pearls are strung. A couple of critics become completely obsessed with looking for this Figure in the Carpet. Of course, Spark loved James's short stories. You feel James's short stories playing inside her own short stories. I think that one of the games she left for her biographers was the idea of The Figure in the Carpet. Go on, find it then. Find it. [laughs] The string on which my pearls are strung.Henry: Why did you leave academia? We should say that you did this before it became the thing that everyone's doing.Frances: Is everyone leaving now?Henry: A lot of people are leaving now.Frances: Oh, I didn't know. I was ahead of the curve. I left 20 years ago because I wasn't able to write the books I wanted to write. I left when I'd written two books as an academic. My first was Literary Seductions, and my second was a biography of a blackmailing courtesan called Harriet Wilson, and the book was called The Courtesan's Revenge. My department was sniffy about the books because they were published by Faber and not by OUP, and suggested that somehow I was lowering the tone of the department.This is what things were like 20 years ago. Then I got a contract to write The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, my third book, again with Faber. I didn't want to write the book with my head of department in the back of my mind saying, "Make this into an academic tome and put footnotes in." I decided then that I would leave, and I left very suddenly. Now, I said I'm leaving sort of now, and I've got books to write, and felt completely liberated. Then for The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, I decided not to have footnotes. It's the only book I've ever written without footnotes, simply as a celebration of no longer being in academia.Then the things I loved about being in academia, I loved teaching, and I loved being immersed in literature, but I really couldn't be around colleagues and couldn't be around the ridiculous rules of what was seen as okay. In fact, the university I left, then asked me to come back on a 0.5 basis when they realised that it was now fashionable to have someone who was a trade author. They asked me to come back, which I did not want to do. I wanted to spend days where I didn't see people rather than days where I had to talk to colleagues all the time. I think that academia is very unhappy. The department I was in was incredibly unhappy.Since then, I took up a job very briefly in another English department where I taught creative writing part-time. That was also incredibly unhappy. I don't know whether other French departments or engineering departments are happier places than English departments, but English departments are the most unhappy places I think I've ever seen.[laughter]Henry: What do you admire about the work of George Meredith?Frances: Oh, I love George Meredith. [laughs] Yes. I think Modern Love, his first novel, Modern Love, in a strange sonnet form, where it's not 14 lines, but 16 lines. By the time you get to the bottom two lines, the novel, the sonnet has become hysterical. Modern Love hasn't been properly recognised. It's an account of the breakdown of his marriage. His wife, who was the daughter of the romantic, minor novelist, Thomas Love Peacock. His wife had an affair with the artist who painted the famous Death of Chatterton. Meredith was the model for Chatterton, the dead poet in his purple silks, with his hand falling on the ground. There's a lot of mythology around Meredith.I think, as with Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green, he's difficult. He's difficult. The other week, I tried to reread Diana of the Crossways, which was a really important novel, and I still love it. I really recognise that it's not an easy read. He doesn't try, in any way, to seduce his readers. They absolutely have to crawl inside each book to sit inside his mind and see the world as he's seeing it.Henry: Can you tell us what you will do next?Frances: At the moment, I'm testing some ideas out. I feel, at the end of every biography, you need a writer. You need to cleanse your palate. Otherwise, there's a danger of writing the same book again. I need this time, I think, to write about, to move century and move genders. I want to go back, I think, to the 19th century. I want to write about a male writer for a moment, and possibly not a novelist as well, because after being immersed in Muriel Sparks' novels, no other novel is going to seem good enough. I'm testing 19th-century men who didn't write novels, and it will probably be a minor character.Henry: Whatever it is, I look forward to reading it. Frances Wilson, thank you very much.Frances: Thank you so much, Henry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Esta noche hablamos con Carlos Martínez, el mimo más famoso de España y uno de los más importantes del mundo. Ha trabajado en más de 40 países (América, Europa, Asia, África...) y lleva más de 40 años llevando la mímica a todos los públicos. También contactamos con Jesús Pinto para hablar de uno de los libros más famosos de Ortega y Gasset: 'La rebelión de las masas' y esos 'niños mimados'. Eva Cosculluela, como cada miércoles, nos ha hecho su recomendación literaria y en esta ocasión ha elegido 'Trifulca a la vista', de Nancy Mitford.

Esta noche hablamos con Carlos Martínez, el mimo más famoso de España y uno de los más importantes del mundo. Ha trabajado en más de 40 países (América, Europa, Asia, África...) y lleva más de 40 años llevando la mímica a todos los públicos. También contactamos con Jesús Pinto para hablar de uno de los libros más famosos de Ortega y Gasset: 'La rebelión de las masas' y esos 'niños mimados'. Eva Cosculluela, como cada miércoles, nos ha hecho su recomendación literaria y en esta ocasión ha elegido 'Trifulca a la vista', de Nancy Mitford.

Toute cette semaine, Au Coeur de l'Histoire met "des soeurs à l'honneur", ces soeurs qui sont entrées dans l'Histoire à plusieurs. Pour le quatrième épisode, Stéphane Bern nous entraîne direction l'Angleterre à la rencontre de Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica et Déborah, toutes Mitford ! 6 filles de l'aristocratie anglaise, 6 sœurs excentriques qui ont traversé le siècle et pris des chemins aussi différents que… surprenants ! Qu'est-ce qui a rendu cette fratrie de sœurs si célèbres ? En quoi les 6 sœurs Mitford ont-elles marqué, chacune à leur manière, le 20ᵉ siècle ? Comment expliquer que ces femmes issues d'une famille aristocrate, aisée, bien éduquées, aient dévié de leur voie qui semblait toute tracée ? Pour en parler, Stéphane Bern reçoit Jean-Noël Liaut, biographe et traducteur, auteur de "Nancy Mitford, la dame de la rue Monsieur" (Allary) et traducteur des livres de Nancy et Deborah Mitford aux éditions Payot. Au Coeur de l'Histoire est réalisée par Loïc Vimard. Rédaction en chef : Benjamin Delsol. Auteur du récit : Pierre-Vincent Letourneau. Journaliste : Clara Leger.Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Toute cette semaine, Au Coeur de l'Histoire met "des soeurs à l'honneur", ces soeurs qui sont entrées dans l'Histoire à plusieurs. Pour le quatrième épisode, Stéphane Bern nous entraîne direction l'Angleterre à la rencontre de Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica et Déborah, toutes Mitford ! 6 filles de l'aristocratie anglaise, 6 sœurs excentriques qui ont traversé le siècle et pris des chemins aussi différents que… surprenants ! Qu'est-ce qui a rendu cette fratrie de sœurs si célèbres ? En quoi les 6 sœurs Mitford ont-elles marqué, chacune à leur manière, le 20ᵉ siècle ? Comment expliquer que ces femmes issues d'une famille aristocrate, aisée, bien éduquées, aient dévié de leur voie qui semblait toute tracée ? Pour en parler, Stéphane Bern reçoit Jean-Noël Liaut, biographe et traducteur, auteur de "Nancy Mitford, la dame de la rue Monsieur" (Allary) et traducteur des livres de Nancy et Deborah Mitford aux éditions Payot. Au Coeur de l'Histoire est réalisée par Loïc Vimard. Rédaction en chef : Benjamin Delsol. Auteur du récit : Pierre-Vincent Letourneau. Journaliste : Clara Leger.Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Come in, and know my satire, man! It is that time of year once again, when satire is all around you and you are cordially invited to the Smith & Waugh Festival Satirical Party! This year Jo and Adam take a look at the Christmassy satire of Stella Gibbons' Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, the festive scenes in George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody and the contagious comedy of Nancy Mitford's Christmas Pudding. Jo also revisits a cherished Christmas story from her childhood and, of course, no Smith & Waugh Christmas would be complete without our very special, extremely self-indulgent Christmas sketc h(featuring a wonderful cameo appearance from our friend, Ben of The Pod)!

Mit dieser spritzig geschriebenen Satire auf die englische Upper-Class gewann Nancy Mitford 1932 die Anerkennung ihres berühmten Kollegen Evelyn Waugh. Zu Recht, zeigt die erneute Lektüre. Denn im Gewand des Leichten verbergen sich sehr ernst zu nehmende Reflexionen über Liebe und Ehe. Eine Rezension von Peter Meisenberg. Von Peter Meisenberger.

Episode 57 was recorded at The Rotunda Theatre in the Tunbridge Wells Fringe Festival on 30th June 2024. The panellists were Richie Rands, Chris Neville-Smith and Ross Ericson. The host was Richard Pulsford. The On This Day topics covered were: - The Tunguska event (30/06/1908) - Mary Surratt sentenced to death (30/06/1865) - The first emergency telephone number (30/06/1937) - Blondin crosses Niagara on a tightrope (30/06/1859) - I'm walking backwards for Christmas enters the charts (30/06/1956) - Nancy Mitford, died (30/06/1973)

A story that is difficult to pin down to a narrative, playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer's debut novel explores arrivals and departures, time and space, through the experiences of a curious cast of characters.    +   Annie Warburton explores why we read the works of old writers, dissecting the work of Nancy Mitford in the context of her era and the happenings in the world around her.  Guests Finnegan Kruckemeyer, playwright whose works have been performed on six continents in 12 languages.    Annie Warburton, former ABC Broadcaster and reading addict.    Danny, our Random Reader Other books that get a mention   Danny mentions: “The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams Author: Ruth Parks “1984” by George Orwell “The Mayor of Casterbridge” by Thomas Hardy “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts “The Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga Author: George Monbiot “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake “The Well Gardened Mind” by Sue Stuart-Smith “The Secret Life of Trees” by Colin Tudge “The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson “My Gita” by Devdutt Pattanaik   INSTAGRAM @textpublishingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A story that is difficult to pin down to a narrative, playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer's debut novel explores arrivals and departures, time and space, through the experiences of a curious cast of characters.    +   Annie Warburton explores why we read the works of old writers, dissecting the work of Nancy Mitford in the context of her era and the happenings in the world around her.  Guests Finnegan Kruckemeyer, playwright whose works have been performed on six continents in 12 languages.    Annie Warburton, former ABC Broadcaster and reading addict.    Danny, our Random Reader Other books that get a mention   Danny mentions: “The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams Author: Ruth Parks “1984” by George Orwell “The Mayor of Casterbridge” by Thomas Hardy “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts “The Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga Author: George Monbiot “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake “The Well Gardened Mind” by Sue Stuart-Smith “The Secret Life of Trees” by Colin Tudge “The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson “My Gita” by Devdutt Pattanaik   INSTAGRAM @textpublishingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pulitzer Prize Award winner, Andrew was such a nice man to talk to. It was a pleasure knowing him, both as a writer and a reader. Hope you enjoy this super nice and down to earth guest. The “funny books” Andrew chose: Moby Dick, Herman Melville; The Idiot, Elif Batuman; Love In A Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford; Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes. Other recommendations: Nancy Mitford: In The Pursuit of Love (À procura do amor) and The Blessing; The books Andrew wrote: How It Was for Me (short stories); The Path of Minor Planets: A Novel; The Confessions of Max Tivoli; The Story of a Marriage; The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells; Less: Pulitzer Prize 2018; Less Is Lost (In PT: Less perdeu-se). I recommended: In Memoriam, Alice Winn; Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. The book I offered: The most fun we ever had, Claire Lombardo. Online bookstore: www.wook.pt

Novelist Sally Franson joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about Fashion Week 2024, the role fashion plays in characterization, and how stylish authors and characters have modeled and influenced tastes and trends. Franson reflects on her time working in the industry and discusses insiders' perceptions of various Fashion Weeks around the globe. She discusses literary style icons including Isabel Archer, Nancy Mitford, James Baldwin, and Bridget Jones, and considers the influence of fashion in her first novel, A Lady's Guide To Selling Out, which has just been reissued in paperback. She reads an excerpt from that book. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf. Sally Franson A Lady's Guide To Selling Out  Big In Sweden (forthcoming) "Shoe Obsession for the Ages: Prince's Killer Collection of Custom Heels, Now on View" August 3, 2021 | The New York Times Others: "Top 10 best-dressed characters in fiction" by Amanda Craig, July 1, 2020 | The Guardian  “The Best Looks from New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2024” | Elle.com "Off the page: fashion in literature" by Helen Gordon, September 18, 2009 | The Guardian "Literature-inspired menswear collections for summer 2024" by Paschal Mourier| France24 "Anna Sui's new collection is inspired by Agatha Christie, so obviously the runway was at the Strand." by Emily Temple | Literary Hub James Baldwin Joan Didion Not-Knowing by Donald Barthelme Rachel Comey and The New York Review of Books The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh   Little Women by Louisa May Alcott  The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

¡Bienvenid@s al primer episodio dedicado a las hermanas Mitford! En esta primera entrega nos centraremos en la figura de las tres hermanas mayores: Nancy Mitford, Pamela Mitford y Diana Mitford,miembros de la alta sociedad británica durante el x. XX, aunque ninguna de ellas hizo lo que se esperaba de una señorita aristócrata en aquel momento, Cada una de ellas eligió su propio camino, algunas de ellas fuera de los convencionalismos de su tiempo. Nancy, era conocida por su aguda inteligencia y humor satírico y destacó como escritora y novelista. Pamela, la más reservada de todas las hermanas, llevó una vida discreta, centrada en su amor por la naturaleza y los animales. Diana, por su parte, atrajo la atención por su matrimonio con Sir Oswald Mosley, líder fascista británico, lo que generó controversia en la familia. Cada una de ellas personificó una época llena de contrastes y eventos significativos que ayudaron a conformar el mundo y la sociedad que conocemos actualmente

Si te gusta lo que escuchas y deseas apoyarnos puedes dejar tu donación en PayPal, ahí nos encuentras como @IrvingSun --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/irving-sun/message

The fates of three people from the 1940s, ‘70s and today collide in Chris Hammer's thrilling new mystery, “The Tilt” - you won't see it coming! + Prolific 20th century writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote everything from witty and malicious novels about the British literati  to his still famous Utopian dystopia Brave New World, and later in his 50 year career went on to explore the world of psychedelic drugs. Annie Warburton explores the Huxley ouvre to understand why Huxley remains a classic. + Our random reader Chris also loves a good mystery Guests… Chris Hammer, author of “The Tilt” and other books including the internationally bestselling Martin Scarsden series: “Scrublands”, “Silver” and “Trust”. Annie Warburton, Tsundoku's “Occasional Reporter on Dead White Men” revists Aldoux Huxley Other books that get a mention… Annie and Michaela mention “Ghost Tattoo” by Tony Bernard, “Birnam Wood”and “The Luminaries” by Eleanor Catton, “The Ferryman; A Novel” by Justin Cronin and “The Disorganisation of Celia Stone” by Emma Young Annie Warburton mentions Aldous Huxley's “Crome Yellow” (1921), “Antic Hay” (1923), “Brave New World:  (1932), “Eyeless in Gaza” (1936), “The Doors of Perception” (1954)..as well as writers Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and William Blake Chris from Aldgate mentions writers Peter May, Ian Rankin and DH Lawrence's “The Rainbow”   INSTAGRAM @allenandunwin @thehammernow   FACEBOOK @Hammernow @allen&unwinbooksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fates of three people from the 1940s, ‘70s and today collide in Chris Hammer's thrilling new mystery, “The Tilt” - you won't see it coming! + Prolific 20th century writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote everything from witty and malicious novels about the British literati  to his still famous Utopian dystopia Brave New World, and later in his 50 year career went on to explore the world of psychedelic drugs. Annie Warburton explores the Huxley ouvre to understand why Huxley remains a classic. + Our random reader Chris also loves a good mystery Guests… Chris Hammer, author of “The Tilt” and other books including the internationally bestselling Martin Scarsden series: “Scrublands”, “Silver” and “Trust”. Annie Warburton, Tsundoku's “Occasional Reporter on Dead White Men” revists Aldoux Huxley Other books that get a mention… Annie and Michaela mention “Ghost Tattoo” by Tony Bernard, “Birnam Wood”and “The Luminaries” by Eleanor Catton, “The Ferryman; A Novel” by Justin Cronin and “The Disorganisation of Celia Stone” by Emma Young Annie Warburton mentions Aldous Huxley's “Crome Yellow” (1921), “Antic Hay” (1923), “Brave New World:  (1932), “Eyeless in Gaza” (1936), “The Doors of Perception” (1954)..as well as writers Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and William Blake Chris from Aldgate mentions writers Peter May, Ian Rankin and DH Lawrence's “The Rainbow”   INSTAGRAM @allenandunwin @thehammernow   FACEBOOK @Hammernow @allen&unwinbooksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six girls and one boy, raised in aristocratic luxury in the years before World War Two, became the most famous - and most scandalous - family in Britain. Their lives were captured in a much loved book - The Pursuit of Love - by eldest sister Nancy Mitford, the subject of a recent glossy TV adaptation. They first became household names because of their beauty and self confidence, soon followed by a series of lurid stories about their wild lifestyles, marriages and affairs. But what really made them important was their politics.As more and more nations embraced authoritarian governments and the rule of dictators, the Mitford sisters began to use their energy and fame on behalf of the most famous, and frightening, strong-men of them all. One became obsessed with Hitler and managed to make herself a member of his closest circle. Another renounced the privileges of her upbringing, admired Stalin and risked her life to embrace the communist cause. A third married and worked closely with Britain's most high profile demagogue: Sir Oswald Mosely, a former socialist who had embraced fascism and anti-semitism and was spoken of as Britain's version of Hitler or Mussolini. Laura Thompson, who has previously been on the podcast discussing Lord Lucan, joins us to talk about her widely acclaimed book on the Mitfords and their time (and why they still fascinate us today). You can buy it - and thousands more - at the Scandal Mongers' own bookshop, where all profits are shared between podcasters and independent bookstores. https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/take-six-girls-the-lives-of-the-mitford-sisters-laura-thompson/1211074?aid=12054&ean=9781784970895Andrew Lownie.twitter.com/andrewlowniePhil Craig.twitter.com/philmcraigYou can also get in touch with the show hosts via...team@podcastworld.org (place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading please)This show is part of the PodcastWorld.org network. For your own show please get in contact via the email address above.Production byTheo XKerem Isik Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In part three, Kimberly discusses the artful depiction of maternity, Mitford's humor, the novel's blend of comedy/tragedy and the close of the book.

In part two, Kimberly discusses the peripheral, third-person (“sidekick”) narrator, Mitford's world-class dialogue and the novel's pacing.

This iconic novel from 1945 seems delightful and frothy and hilarious–and is all those things–while also being a legit literary masterpiece. (Plus the BBC 3-part tv series is such a treat.) In part one, Kimberly will argue why you should read the book, dip into Mitford's fascinating biography, and dive into the opening of the work.

Meet the Mitfords, memento mori monuments and meanders through churchyards and cemeteries over a few years. Jonty and Laura have been 'graveyard hopping' for many years now, often recording their explorations. But what is graveyard hopping? What's the attraction?  We answer that question, discuss some of the coolest names and most beautiful epitaphs, and take you on alittle tour of peaceful places. It's not a standard episode of Beer Christianity, but it is an insight into what we like to do outside of recordng the podcast - and the lovely churchyards around here.  From a grisly discovery near CS Lewis' grave to beautiful and intersting inscriptions on memorials and a quest to find an interesting grave (and an interesting family) in rural oxfordshire, Laura and Jonty examine what they like about graveyards and remember the people buried there. Check out this episode for a crash course in the Mitfords (including the graves of Nancy Mitford, Unity Mitford, Diana Mitford and Jessica Mitford), the sounds of the Oxfordshire countryside and an elusive hedgehog / mole.  New to Beer Christianity? Welcome! Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, post-post-post-evangelical (and apparently republican) podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, to be helpful and entertaining. Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Stitcher.  If you leave us a voicenote at speakpipe.com/beerchristianity we might air your question on an episode. Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters.  Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack.  There's a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and weird chat. It's not terribly serious.  Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not available in all good bookshops, but if you bought it and left a review that would probably make that more likely.  We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice.   

Kimberly will share whether you should—or should not—dig into The Pursuit of Love. She'll treat you to a snippet of the prose to give you a sense, but for a deeper analysis, check out the lecture.

It's time to throw up the windows and grab your supplies. Let's get excited about cleaning! There are so many benefits to a sparkling clean home. Ok, if you can't get excited, maybe just get motivated to get the house cleaned. Our tips, tricks, advice and enthusiasm will help.We participate in the affiliate program with Amazon and other retailers. We may receive a small fee for qualified purchases at no extra cost to you.You need a stiff brush to use on grout tile like the one HEREAunt Fannies has great cleaners for windows HERE and for bathrooms HEREI use a small dust mop like the one HEREI love my baseboard buddy HEREThe under refrigerator brush I use is HEREI use a lambswool duster for the furniture HEREI love this furniture polish I use on my stainless steel appliances and the counter topDTT defines Suzani fabricKelly's crush is the book The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, listen on Audible or watch the BBC adaptationAnita's crush is the Youtube channel How to Renovate a ChateauSCHEDULE A DESIGN CONSULTNeed help with your home? We'd love to help! We do personalized consults, and we'll offer advice specific to your room that typically includes room layout ideas, suggestions for what the room needs, and how to pull the room together. We'll also help you to decide what isn't working for you. We work with any budget, large or small. Find out more HEREHang out with us between episodes at our blogs, IG and Kelly's YouTube channels. Links are below to all those places to catch up on the other 6 days of the week!Anita's IG Kelly's IGAnita's blogKelly's blogKelly's YoutubeAre you subscribed to the podcast? Don't need to search for us each Wednesday let us come right to your door ...er...device. Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. Just hit the SUBSCRIBE button & we'll show up!If you have a moment we would so appreciate it if you left a review for DTT on iTunes. Just go HERE and click listen in apple podcasts.XX,Anita & KellyDI-11:25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time to throw up the windows and grab the brushes. Let's get excited about cleaning. If you can't get excited, maybe just get motivated to get the house cleaned, because you are going to love your clean house.  We participate in the affiliate program with Amazon and other retailers. We may receive a small fee for qualified purchases at no extra cost to you. You need a stiff brush to use on grout tile like the one [HERE](https://amzn.to/3n9pTBL) Aunt Fannies has great cleaners for windows [HERE](https://amzn.to/3TBDZb4) and for bathrooms [HERE](https://amzn.to/3TA876U) I use a small dust mop like the one [HERE](https://amzn.to/3Z6DFm4) I love my baseboard buddy [HERE](https://amzn.to/3nKlSE7) The under refrigerator brush I use is [HERE](https://amzn.to/40MG3jp) I use a lambswool duster for the furniture [HERE](https://amzn.to/3Z6DFm4) I love this furniture polish I use on my stainless steel appliances and the counter top [HERE](https://amzn.to/3Gjqvvl) DTT defines Suzani fabric Kelly's crush is the book The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford...get a copy [HERE](https://amzn.to/3ZMdGAp), listen on Audible [HERE](https://amzn.to/40IhkN7) or watch the BBC adaptation [HERE](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210722-the-pursuit-of-love-britains-most-scandalous-family). Anita's crush is the ful Youtube channel How to Renovate a Chateau [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/@HowToRenovateAChateau) Need help with your home? We'd love to help! We do personalized consults, and we'll offer advice specific to your room that typically includes room layout ideas, suggestions for what the room needs, and how to pull the room together. We'll also help you to decide what isn't working for you. We work with any budget, large or small. Find out more [HERE](https://www.decoratingtipsandtricks.com/consult) Hang out with us between episodes at our blogs, IG and Kelly's YouTube channels. Links are below to all those places to catch up on the other 6 days of the week! Kelly's IG [HERE](https://www.instagram.com/mysoulfulhome/) Kelly's Youtube [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/mysoulfulhome) Kelly's blog [HERE](https://www.mysoulfulhome.com/) Anita's IG [HERE](https://www.instagram.com/cedarhillfarmhouse/) Anita's blog [HERE](https://cedarhillfarmhouse.com/) Are you subscribed to the podcast? Don't need to search for us each Wednesday let us come right to your door ...er...device. Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. Just hit the SUBSCRIBE button & we'll show up! If you have a moment we would so appreciate it if you left a review for DTT on iTunes. Just go [HERE](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decorating-tips-and-tricks/id1199677372?ls=1&mt=2) and click listen in apple podcasts.   XX, Anita & Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode, Deborah Goodrich Royce joins me to talk about her latest book, Reef Road. We discuss the personal story behind her book and the role of generational trauma in her writing niche, which she calls “Identity Thrillers.”  We also covered the explosion of true crime content and got a sneak peek at some details of her upcoming book. Also, Deborah shares her book recommendations — breaking the format by pairing the old and new books together.   This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). Highlights A spoiler-free rundown of Reef Road. Deborah's “Identity Thrillers” micro-genre and how it fits her writing style. The real-life crime that inspired Reef Road. Why Deborah chose to write a fictional story instead of a non-fiction account. How she explores generational and conferred trauma. The connection between generational trauma and the obsessive researching that motivates amateur sleuths. The role of residual trauma in the lives of authors Dominick Dunne and Michelle McNamara. The explosion of True Crime content and the public's fascination with it. Deborah shares a story about a recent break-in she experienced and discusses how her thriller author mindset influenced her analysis of the event. Some sneak peek details about an upcoming book she's working on. The meta elements about crime fiction in Reef Road. The real-life details that helped develop the true crime writer character's voice in the story. How the setting and the COVID lockdown played a pivotal role in the development of the story. Deborah's Book Recommendations [33:26] Two Book PAIRINGS She Loves Old Book: The Pursuit of Love; Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford | Amazon | Bookshop.org [33:55] New Book: The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict | Amazon | Bookshop.org [35:53] Old Book: Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout | Amazon | Bookshop.org [39:55] New Book: Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout | Amazon | Bookshop.org [39:29] One Book She Didn't Love The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot | Amazon | Bookshop.org [43:27] One NEW RELEASE She's Excited About The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane (May 2, 2023) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [45:44] Last 5-Star Book Deborah Read Charming Billy by Alice McDermott | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:32] Other Books Mentioned Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce [1:22] Finding Mrs. Ford by Deborah Goodrich Royce [1:28] I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara [13:35] Unmasked by Paul Holes [13:51] Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson [22:42] Seven Days in June by Tia Williams [22:59] The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles [23:43] The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [26:21] 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard [32:42] All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr [33:04] The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford [38:13] Kind and Usual Punishment by Jessica Mitford [38:16] The Sun King by Nancy Mitford [38:35] Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford [38:39] Middlemarch by George Eliot [43:53] Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane [45:59] Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry [49:18] About Deborah Goodrich Royce Website | Twitter | Instagram Deborah Goodrich Royce's thrillers examine puzzles of identity. Reef Road hit Publishers Weekly's Bestseller list, Good Morning America's Top 15 list, and was an Indie Next pick by the American Booksellers Association for January 2023. Ruby Falls won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist in 2021 and Finding Mrs. Ford was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot, and Good Morning America's “best of” lists in 2019.  She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films, before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time.  With her husband, Chuck, Deborah restored the Avon Theatre, Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, United Theatre, Savoy Bookstore, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills.  She serves on the governing and advisory boards of the American Film Institute, Greenwich International Film Festival, New York Botanical Garden, Greenwich Historical Society, and the PRASAD Project.  Deborah holds a bachelor's degree in modern foreign languages and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Lake Erie College.  

Diane and Sean try to discuss the 2001 BBC mini series, Love in a Cold Climate. Episode music is, "Love in a Cold Climate (exit theme)" by Rob Lane, for the show.-  Our theme song is by Brushy One String-  Artwork by Marlaine LePage-  Why Do We Own This DVD?  Merch available at Teepublic-  Follow the show on social media:-  IG: @whydoweownthisdvd-  Twitter: @whydoweownthis1-  Follow Sean's Plants on IG: @lookitmahplantsSupport the show

PRESENTACIÓN LIBROS 00:02:30 A la caza del amor. Nancy Mitford en general 00:04:20 Todo va a mejorar (Almudena Grandes) 00:07:00 ¿Qué le pasa a la secretaria Kim? 00:08:20 Hijas de los peores tiempos. Alondra (Marta Inés Rodríguez) 00:11:35 Devoción (Hannah Kent) DEL PAPEL A LA PANTALLA 00:15:55 Pollo con ciruelas 00:16:45 Cortar por la línea de puntos 00:17:30 Rosalie blum PELÍCULAS 00:20:10 Maixabel 00:21:45 Red 00:23:20 ¡Qué ruina de función! 00:24:50 El poder del perro 00:27:10 Bullet train 00:29:00 Nope SERIES 00:02:05 Las chicas de oro 00:34:20 Yellowjackets 00:36:30 The Split 00:38:20 Severance 00:40:25 Dopesick 00:42:25 Pachinko TRAMPA EXTRA 00:46:05 Hacks 00:47:30 El género fantástico con The Sandman / House of the Dragon / The Rings of Power 00:51:25 COSAS QUE NOS HACEN FELICES 00:53:15 DESPEDIDA En este programa suenan: Radical Opinion (Archers) / Siesta (Jahzzar) / Place on Fire (Creo) / I saw you on TV (Jahzzar) / Parisian (Kevin McLeod) / Bicicle Waltz (Goodbie Kumiko)

O José Diogo Quintela lê não ficção na sala e ficção no quarto. O humorista e cronista tem interesses variados, desde as diferenças sociais a cataclismos climáticos. Um homem interessado e que lê bons livros, que acrescentei à minha lista. Vamos conhecer alguns: Augustus, John Williams; Eu, Claudio, Robert Graves; Scoop, Evelyn Waugh; Reviver o passado em Brightshead, Evelyn Waugh; Catch 22, Joseph Heller; O fim da aventura, Graham Greene; À procura do amor, Nancy Mitford; O dicionário dos snobs, Rita Ferro. O que ofereci: Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles.

A milestone for Wizards vs Lesbians - our first advanced review copy!  That put us in a good mood but rest assured this one is great on its own merits.  Think Wodehouse, Nancy Mitford, Utena, but with wizards, lesbians, communists, and sinister White Russians.

Dee and Carol talk about self-sowing flowers, green bean success, saving seeds and homesteading.Link to our Substack newsletter with more information about this week's episode. Be sure and subscribe to get the newsletter directly in your email inbox!Links:   The Okies for Monarchs Central Oklahoma wildflower seed from Johnston Seed Company Celosia seeds from Floret Flowers Dee's zinnia video on InstagramZinnias Oklahoma series from Johnny's Selected SeedsProvider green beans from Botanical Interests (affiliate link) Carol's Green Bean story   On the Bookshelf:   The First-Time Homesteader: A Complete Beginner's Guide to Starting and Loving Your New Homestead by Jessica Soward.  (Amazon Link) and check out her other book: The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables.  (Amazon Link)Funk Farm Miniature Herefords on Facebook and InstagramRabbit Holes:  Christopher Kimball's Milk Street, and their podcast,  Milk Street Radio with an  episode on Julia Child.  The Mayfair Bookshop: A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness by Eliza Knight and Heywood Hill Bookshop (a real place!) plus two more books:  Garden Stories, edited by  Diane Secker Tesdell and  Stories of Trees, Woods, and the Forest, edited by Fiona Stafford.   Flylady, to tame the chaos.Central Oklahoma Daylily Society, plant sale September 10th! If you live in the area, Dee will have some of her daylilies in the sale.Happy Birthday, Dee!Affiliate link to Botanical Interest Seeds. (If you buy something from them after using this link, we earn a small commission at no cost to you. This helps us continue to bring this podcast to you ad-free!)  Book links are also affiliate links.Email us anytime at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com  For more info on Carol and her books, visit her website.  Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.For more info on Dee and her book, visit her website.  Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.Don't forget to sign up for our newsletters, via our websites!

INTRODUCCIÓN LIBROS 00:02:25 Agatha Raisin y el paseo mortal. Agatha Raisin #4 (M.C. Beaton) 00:05:55 Un caso de tres perros. Su Majestad, la reina investigadora #2 (S.J. Bennett) 00:08:05 Trifulca a la vista (Nancy Mitford) 00:10:20 Los niños de la casa grande (Angela Porras) 00:!2:30 Hijas de los peores tiempos. Alondra (Marta Inés Rodríguez) 00:15:40 La pequeña Eve (Catriona Ward) 00:18:10 Cuando éramos los mejores (Larry Bird y Magic Johnson) 00:21:35 Yugoslavia, mi tierra (Goran Vojnovic) 00:24:05 Sirenas borrachas (Kat Leyh) 00:26:30 Cuentos góticos (Elizabeth Gaskell) 00:28:55 Un diamante al rojo vivo (Donald Westlake) 00:30:45 Sistemas críticos. Los diarios de Matabot #1 (Martha Wells) 00:33:35 Cuentas pendientes. Reflexiones de una lectora reincidente (Vivian Gornick) 00:35:50 Fragmentos de honor. Saga de Vorkosigan #1 (Lois McMaster Bujold) 00:37:50 Los dos amores de mi vida (Taylor Jenkins Reid) 00:40:30 Por siempre ¿felices? (Taylor Jenkins Reid) 00:42:25 Casa Capitular. Dune #6 (Frank Herbert) 00:44:40 Un recuerdo de luz. La rueda del tiempo #14 (Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson) 00:47:25 ¿Que le pasa a la secretaria Kim? ol 3 (Kim Myeongmi) 00:49:30 No me acuerdo de nada (Nora Ephron) 00:51:25 Los griegos (Isaac Asimov) 00:53:30 Ensayo de la vida real (Alexa Manzano) 00:56:00 ¡Hoy he salido de casa! y En serio, es broma (Cassandra Calin) Tres libros para el verano 00:58:10 1927. Un verano que cambió el mundo (Bill Bryson) 00:59:15 Carcoma (Layla Martínez) 00:59:50 Flores para la señora Harris y La señora Harris va a Nueva York (Paul Galico) 01:00:55 Tengo miedo torero (Pedro Lemebel) 01:01:35 the other Mitford (Diana Alexander) 01:03:00 Las Mitford. Cartas entre seis hermanas (Charlotte Mosley) DEL PAPEL A LA PANTALLA 01:94:35 El malvado zorro feroz PELÍCULAS 01:10:50 Minions, the rise of Gru 01:13:30 Thor. Love ant Thunder 01:17:50 Persuasion (2022) 01:27:05 Star Wars Episodio III: La venganza de los Sith 01:28:40 Maleficio 01:30:10 Chicago 01:32:20 El agente invisible SERIES 01:34:20 Reza y obedece 01:36:25 Captive audience 01:38:50 Miss Marvel 01:40:10 Conversaciones entre amigos 01:43:15 Paper Girls (T1) 01:45:55 Amor y anarquía (T2) 01:49 35 The boys (T3) 01:52:30 Borgen (T3) 01:54:35 The Split (T3) Deberes 01:56:45 The Umbrella Academy (T3) 01:59:30 Better call Saul (T2-T6A) PODCASTS 02:02:35 El silencio roto 02:05:10 Misterio en la Moraleja 02:08:30 DESPEDIDA En este programa suenan: Radical Opinion (ARchers) / Siesta (Jahzzar) / From the back (Pat Lok & Party Pupils) / Place on fire (Creo) / I saw you on TV (Jahzzar) / Parisian (Kevin MacLeod) / Bicycle Waltz (Goodbye Kumiko)

PRESENTACIÓN LIBROS 00:01:50 La bendición (Nancy Mitford) 00:04:10 La promesa del sucesor. La Ley del Milenio #3 (Trudi Canavan) 00:07:30 Pudin de Navidad (Nancy Mitford) 00:10:15 La estela de plata. Reckless #4 (Cornelia Funke) 00:14:20 Ay, campaneras (Lidia GArcía) 00:16:05 Dios emperador de Dune. Dune #4 (Frank Herbert) 00:19:20 Ofendiditos (Lucía Lijtmaer - Audiolibro) 00:23:05 Torres de medianoche. La rueda del tiempo #13 (Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson) 00:26:30 Venganza para víctimas (Holly Jackson) 00:28:50 1795. Bellman noir #3 (Niklas Natt och Dag) 00:32:20 Tú serás mi muerte (Karen M. McManus) 00:34:20 Sí soy (Daviz Ramírez) 00:37:20 Giant Days 12 (John Allison) DEL PAPEL A LA PANTALLA 00:39:55 Moxie PELÍCULAS 00:47:15 Star Wars episodio II: El ataque de los clones 00:50:35 El buen patrón 00:55:25 Sonrisas y lágrimas 00:59:00 The Janes 01:04:15 Top Gun: Maverick SERIES 01:07:55 The Essex Serpent 01:10:35 Las luminosas 01:13:05 Life and Beth (T1) 01:14:40 The flight attendant (T2) 01:17:10 Hacks (T2) 01:19:10 Atlanta (T3) 01:22:40 Derry Girls (3) 01:25:40 Stranger Things (T4A) 01:27:20 The Rookie (T4) 01:28:45 Better Call Saul (T6A) 01:31:05 Fear the walking dead (T7B) 01:33:00 Anatomía de Grey (T18) - CON SPOILERS 01:40:30 DESPEDIDA En este programa suenan: Radical Opinion (Archers) / Siesta (Jahzzar) / From the Back (Pat Lok & Party Pupils) / Place on Fire (Creo) / I saw you on TV (Jahzzar) / Bicycle Waltz (Goodbye Kumiko)

The Mayfair Bookshop is a dual-narrative story about Nancy Mitford and a modern American woman desperate for change — both women connected through time by a little London bookshop.Today on the podcast, Victoria speaks with Eliza Knight about her latest novel, The Mayfair Bookshop, her inspiration and hopes for the novel, her reading and writing life, and lots more.Download your copy of The BiblioLifestyle 2022 Summer Reading Guide!  I've rounded up some of the season's best books, and this year's guide has 30 new releases, organized across 8 categories.  We even have one dedicated to the minimalist reader, plus you'll find some fun recipes, things to do at home, and tips to help improve your reading life.  So download your free copy of the guide here.Subscribe to the BiblioLifestyle weekly newsletter to get weekly bookish news, curated book lists, inspiration, and podcast updates.  You can also join and support our Patreon community, where I share bonus episodes, exclusive content, and you can influence future episodes.Online LinksWebsite: thereaderscouch.com Instagram: @thecouchisbooked Facebook: @thecouchisbooked Twitter: @thecouchisbookd Patreon: patreon.com/bibliolifestyle 

Catbird's Leigh Plessner joins us to discuss the 1931 novella Sundays and its fascinating author, French socialite Daisy Fellowes. Heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, Fellowes was the Paris editor of the American Harper's Bazaar and muse to the likes of Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Salvador Dali. Karl Lagerfeld reportedly once called her “the chicest woman I ever laid eyes on.” Discussed in this episode: Sundays by Daisy FellowesLeigh PlessnerCatbirdCoco Chanel Rachel TashjiaIsaac SingerIsabel Blanche SingerWinaretta SingerDiana VreelandCecil Beaton Salvador DaliVan Cleef and ArpelsBelperron CartierThe Tutti Frutti collection by CartierDuff CooperWinston Churchill“The Most Wicked Woman in High Society” (The Daily Mail) Heiresses: the Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura ThompsonNancy MitfordLost Ladies of Lit episode on Nancy Mitford with Laura ThompsonRonald Firbank Marcel VertesMoulin Rouge (1952 film)Jean CocteauCats in the Isle of Man by Daisy FellowesLudwig Bemelmans Bemelmans BarTell Them it was Wonderful by Ludwig BemelmansTo the One I Love Best by Ludwig BemelmansElsie de WolfeLost Ladies of Lit episode on Marjorie Hillis with Joanna Scutts

In today's Love Letters to... we celebrate the infamous Mitfords, and the sister who wrote about them. Advertise with us! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrés Amorós recomienda el libro de Nancy Mitford, A la caza del amor.

At the start of 2021, I stopped giving books a star rating. Why? Listen to find out! Our May book club pick is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. This 1961 modern classic novella is about the eccentric teacher, Miss Jean Brodie, and the six pupils she takes under her wing. I'll be discussing this on Sunday the 30th of May, so I hope you read along with me! Links My website, Angourie's Library The Storygraph The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford review The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White Black Lives Matter resources Pay the Rent My Instagram, Goodreads and StoryGraph The Community Library's Instagram Cover artwork is by Ashley Ronning Ashley's Instagram, website, and printing studio website

This week, we're talking about the dangers of doomscrolling during a pandemic, taking a leaf out of Nancy Mitford's book when it comes to our workloads, and questioning whether it's time to retire the word 'flattering' when we talk about fashion. Plus, we're sharing our recommendations - and discussing why Selling Sunset is as problematic as it is addictive - over a bottle of Cocio chocolate milk... well, we did record this episode during a heatwave. To hear more from us, sign up at TheWingwoman.co.uk to receive our free weekly newsletter every Sunday. Email us at thewingwomanofficial@gmail.com Links from the episode: Are you guilty of doomscrolling? How the unhealthy new social media trend is eroding your mental health - Beth McColl, Glamour 'Doomscrolling' during Covid-19: what it does to you and how you can avoid it - Christopher Curley, Healthline The new taboo: how 'flattering' became fashion's ultimate f-word - Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian

Laura Thompson gives insights into the "very complex" life of English novelist Nancy Mitford with tales drawn from Laura's biography of Nancy, "Life in a Cold Climate."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who were the Lost Girls? All coming from broken or failed Upper-middle Class families; the Lost Girls were all chic, glamorous, and bohemian, as likely to be found living in a rat-haunted maisonette as dining at the Ritz, Lys Lubbock, Sonia Brownell, Barbara Skelton, and Janetta Parlade cut a swath through English literary and artistic life at the height of World War II. Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became for a short time the mistress of the King of Egypt. They had very different―and sometimes explosive―personalities, but taken together they form a distinctive part of the wartime demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time. Ranging from Bloomsbury and Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Hartnell, the Lost Girls would inspire the work of George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, and Nancy Mitford. In his new book The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London (Pegasus Books, 2020), D. J. Taylor, the author of the Prose Factory and an award winning biography of George Orwell, shows the reader how these four adventuresome young ladies were the missing link between the Lost Generation and Bright Young People and the Dionysiac cultural revolution of the 1960s. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story. A must read for anyone interested in the history of the 20th century English literary Intelligentsia. Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House's International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catriona McPherson's 'Scottish Downton Abbey' Dandy Gilver series serves up a hedonistic mix of history, black comedy and murder in elegant prose certain to appeal to fans of Evelyn Waugh, Agatha Christie and Nancy Mitford. Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Catriona talks about why she loves the Golden Age of British mystery and how her new heroine Lexy Campbell views the California dream through Scottish eyes. But before we talk to Catriona, just a reminder that the show notes for this Binge Reading episode can be found on the website, The Joys of Binge Reading.com That's where you'll find a full transcript of our discussion, plus links to Cat's books and website, as well as details about how to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss future episodes. Six things you'll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why it's important to write what you love How being unhappy at work got her started Her passion for the mythical world of Golden Age mystery The etiquette of leaving - and how Scots and Yankees do it differently Seeing the California dream through Scottish eyes What she'd do differently second time around Where to find Catriona McPherson:  Website: http://catrionamcpherson.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Catriona-McPherson-171725286218342/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatrionaMcP Blogs: Seven Criminal Minds:  http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/ Femme Fatale Blogspot:   http://femmesfatales.typepad.com/ What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here's Catriona. .  Hello there Catriona and welcome to the show, it's great to have you with us Cat: Thanks for having me Jenny Author Catriona McPherson Jenny: Beginning at the beginning - was there a “Once Upon A Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst, what was it? Catriona: There was a time when I was a young teenager, when I was thirteen or fourteen when I wanted to be a writer, that what I wanted to do for a job  But it was frowned upon but I had a careers adviser who told me it was daft, that it wasn't a good idea, So I shelved that idea and it was only when I was 35 and I had a job that I hated that I came back to it and by then there wasn't anyone who could tell me I couldn't do it....  so I had a long, long hiatus. Jenny: You're extremely versatile - you've successfully  proven yourself in three different genres - historical mysteries, dark “stand alone” thrillers, and your latest book Scot Free which launches a new  California laugh out loud funny mystery series. But let's start with the Dandy Gilver, and your Scottish mysteries set in the 1920's and 30's in a big country house . . - the "Scottish Downton Abbey" You're up to Number 12 in this series now. They've gathered an armful of awards and a dedicated following - Tell us about writing # 1 “After the Armistice.”  I presume this was your first completed MS? After the Armistice Ball - Dandy Gilver # 1 Catriona: Well no actually it's not, the first MS I finished was a modern literary novel  - or anyway a novel - and after I got 40 rejections, I was feeling a bit glum, and I put it in a drawer, and my husband Neil suggested that I should write something I loved as a "palate cleanser" just for fun. And what I loved was the Golden Age of Mystery - it's not really a historical period, because it's a cultural space - a bit of history and a lot of writing tradition...  and he said write of them just for fun, because everyone who writes them is dead, so just for fun I wrote the first Dandy Gilver story, because I love Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh and Michael Innes and Josephine Tey and all that lot .  . and as you say I am up to Number 12 now, so my palate cleanser went very well indeed. Jenny: It really feels as if you  knew the time,

Dawn O'Porter and Graham Fellows, AKA John Shuttleworth, talk with Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books, including two tales of alienation, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse and Green Girl by Kate Zambreno, and Nancy Mitford's gossipy tale of adultery and a scheming child in post war France and England.