Tea or Books? #26: give up vs soldier on, and Matilda by Roald Dahl vs Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Roald Dahl, Michelle Magorian, and whether or not to give up on books – I’m back from holiday, and Rachel and I have a lovely new (…long) episode of Tea or Books?   In our first half, we discuss whether

Roald Dahl, Michelle Magorian, and whether or not to give up on books – I’m back from holiday, and Rachel and I have a lovely new (…long) episode of Tea or Books?

In our first half, we discuss whether or not we give up on books, and what factors might play into that decision – and in the second half we get all children’s-literature-focused. We’re supposedly pitting Matilda by Roald Dahl against Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (which only have in common that Rachel and I loved them both as children) – but we end up talking about every Dahl we can think of.

This is the excellent airbnb place I stayed in Siena, and this is our iTunes page. Listen to the ep up above, over there, or any which way you choose. We’re not the bosses of you! Having said that, I do want to boss you into telling us what you’d choose for each half. And more ideas, please! We got so many good ideas from people a while ago… and we’re running out.

Here are the books and authors we talked about in this episode:

Collection of Sand by Italo Calvino

Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Sword of Bone by Anthony Rhodes

Chatterton Square by E.H. Young

Miss Mole by E.H. Young

But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman

Jane Austen

The Dover Road by A.A. Milne (book your tickets here!)

Private Lives by Noel Coward

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Zadie Smith

P.G. Wodehouse

Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Crash by J.G. Ballard

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt

The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Black Dogs by Ian McEwan

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Elizabeth Bowen

Jane Austen

Muriel Spark

Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns

Who Was Changed and Who was Dead by Barbara Comyns

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

P.D. James

The Chateau by William Maxwell

A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor

Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Going Solo by Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach: a play by David Wood

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

The Twits by Roald Dahl

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl

Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Doreen by Barbara Noble

Kisses on a Postcard by Terence Frisby

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh