As part of our #ToniMorrison series we’re lucky enough to chat with one of the world’s leading Morrison scholars, prof. Autumn Womack. Autumn has spent more time with the Morrison Papers at @princeton.edu than pretty much anyone else – except (maybe) Morrison herself 🎧 Out now.

This week we're joined in conversation with Autumn Womack, one of the most important #ToniMorrison scholars, to chat about writing the biography of Morrison’s novels and making a landmark exhibition from Toni Morrison’s archives at @princeton.edu! Out today 🔗 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s...

📣 We want to hear from you 📣 If we were to make a list of the #bestbooks since the mid-90s, what books would be on that list? Let us know in the comments below! #ToniMorrison #SecretLifeOfBooks #BestBooks #BookList #BookSky

In #SongOfSolomon (1977), #ToniMorrison chose a male protagonist to retell a deep history of African cultural magic, to create a story that refuses to do anything that readers of American retellings of biblical epics were expecting. 🔗 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t... #BlackHistoryMonth #BookSky

The Secret Life of Books has officially been nominated for best #IndiePodcast at the 2026 NYC Podcast Awards! We’re so thrilled to be nominated, thank you @silver-nyc.com 🧡. Head to the #NYCPodcastAwards website to check out the nominees! 🔗 www.silver-nyc.com/nycpodcastaw...

In the second episode in our series on the great Nobel Laureate #ToniMorrison, we continue the story of how she disrupted virtually all existing expectations of how a Black woman novelist would sound and explore the book that propelled her into mainstream fame. podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

In Toni Morrison's third novel #SongOfSolomon, names are highly important. They're also a point of humour -- "Not Doctor Street," for one. Learn more by tuning into the new episode in our #ToniMorrison mini-series on #SecretLifeOfBooks podcast. Out tomorrow! #BlackHistoryMonth #BookSky

#GeorgeEliot had the confidence to call Book 5 of Middlemarch "The Dead Hand" – audacious, given that every book would have been sold separately. But The Dead Hand it is, and readers brave enough to buy the volume were rewarded with many of the best scenes in the novel. #BookSky

We're all about the underdog.. That's why we cannot move on from Emily Bronte's #WutheringHeights without talking about her younger sister Anne, author of the remarkable The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. While Anne is now the least celebrated of the Bronte trio, Tenant was considered the most shocking!

NEW EPISODE: With all the fuss around #WutheringHeights, we’re worried Emily Bronte is getting all the attention. So we're shifting the SLOB-light to her younger sister Anne, author of the remarkable and (at the time) highly-shocking The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

With all the fuss and fanfare around #WutheringHeights, we’re worried Emily Bronte is getting more than her fair share of attention. So today we shift the SLOB-light to her younger sister Anne, author of the remarkable The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 🔗 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t... #BookSky

@devoney.bsky.social might be one of the key voices on #JaneAusten, but that doesn't mean she can get her sons on board... So, how exactly do you get kids to read Austen? Listen to the full #podcast episode now: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/j... #BookSky

"Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked." #JaneAusten In this special bonus episode we chat Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday celebrations, with guest @devoney.bsky.social, one of the world’s leading Austen scholars, and author of #WildForAusten! 🔗 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/j...

Do you listen to the Secret Life of Books podcast? If not, add to the queue. It was a treat to talk Austen's 250th, Wild for Austen, and what's next with brilliant Sophie Gee on the latest episode of SLoB "Jane Austen's Birthday: Everyone Wants to Party with Jane." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/j...

"Facts are such horrid things!" #JaneAusten 🎂 After celebrating Austen's 250th birthday, we found ourselves wondering what it is about Jane - why this endurance? Who better to chat with on than @devoney.bsky.social, one world’s leading Austen scholars, and author of #WildForAusten!

NEW EPISODE: Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" - worth the hype? Sophie and Jonty decide who are the winners and losers in the Fennell-Robbie-Elordi mash-up adaptation of #EmilyBronte’s novel. Plus, the meaty questions: race, class, sex, abuse &.. pets? podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/e...

🪦 We NEED to talk about the mass elimination of characters. Emerald Fennell’s #WutheringHeights merged some characters, vaporised others, not to mention, we’re missing the whole second half (though there's been talk of a sequel). Still, it’s decided, the loss of Lockwood is great. RIP Lockwood.

What happened to the dogs in Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights"? Dogs play a big role in Emily Bronte's #WutheringHeights, yet several are absent in the new film adaptation. So, where did these characters go? Learn more by tuning into this weeks episode, wherever you get podcasts! #BookSky

🚨❗ This is a SLoB emergency ❗🚨 We pulled out all the stops to release this episode in the immediate aftermath of the Valentines Day release of Emerald Fennell’s #WutheringHeightsMovie. Tune into tomorrows episode to hear what Sophie and Jonty actually think the film.

Here's your Valentine’s Mixtape, love the Secret Life of Books. Whether you're in the mood for love, or needing a break from all those sappy love stories, we've got you covered. Tune into the #SecretLifeOfBooks this #ValentinesDay. Listen to our latest episodes: www.secretlifeofbooks.org

#GeorgeEliot's politics were conservative. Eliot believed that to be defiantly radical was to upset society. She believed in a much more conservative political agenda — one of a gradual and slow reform, rather not revolution, which she felt led to grandstanding and acts of egotistical heroism.

The Conversation named 6 of the best Australian #literarypodcasts, and we're thrilled to have made the list! Thanks Caitlin Macdonald for the incredible review, published in @aunz.theconversation.com #BookSky

#WutheringHeights' Heathcliff has become an iconic romantic prototype... but what's actually being portrayed is an almost sibling-like relationship. This week on the podcast, we're doing a deep dive into Wuthering Heights. Listen on Apple: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/w... #WutheringHeightsMovie

NEW EPISODE: The storm clouds are gathering in anticipation of the Valentine’s Day release of Emerald Fennell’s raunchy film adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Get ready for the big V. Day release with this brand-new episode. #WutheringHeightsMovie podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/w...

🎬 Is #WutheringHeights really the greatest love story of all time, as suggested in the recent trailer for Emerald Fennell's adaptation? Find out in today’s episode all about Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Out soon, wherever you get podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky #WutheringHeightsMovie

🕯️ Heathcliff was racially ambiguous in #WutheringHeights by Emily Brontë. We're bringing you a primer on Wuthering Heights for anyone wanting a refresher on Bronte and her work. 🎧 Tune in tomorrow, wherever you listen to podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #WutheringHeightsMovie #BookSky

In this thrilling bonus episode, Sophie talks to @richove.bsky.social about how the Oxford’s Bodleian came to own the manuscript of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. To see the manuscript, go to the Digital Bodleian: digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/53fd... @bodleian.ox.ac.uk #Frankenstein

1970 was a landmark year for Black female writers! Books mentioned: ⭐️ Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye ⭐️ Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ⭐️ Audre Lorde, Cables to Rage" ⭐️ Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland ⭐️ Toni Cade Bambara, The Black Woman" #BookSky #BlackHistoryMonth

NEW EP: The Bluest Eye is the debut novel from #ToniMorrison. It remains in many ways her most radical. It’s one of the most #bannedbooks in America – for its unflinching, explicit depictions of domestic abuse, racial and sexual violence in small town America. podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

"Invisible to whom?" -- #ToniMorrison believed one of the greatest challenges for a black writer in the late 1960s was how to write within an English literary tradition that wasn't for a white audience. #BlackHistoryMonth #BookSky

💙 #ToniMorrison's The Bluest Eye is one of the most #bannedbooks in America. It was her first outing in fiction — and in many respects, her most enduringly radical. Morrison would go on to write many literary tour de force, including the Song Of Solomon and Beloved. #BookSky #BlackHistoryMonth

It's time... we’re finally talking about one of our favourite characters: Mary Garth from George Eliot's Middlemarch. 📚 What do you think about Mary Garth? Let us know in the comments below. #GeorgeEliot #BookSky

⭐ In #GeorgeEliot's Middlemarch, every major character is stuck in a labyrinth, the labyrinth of Middlemarch... and they keep getting lost and taking the wrong turns. #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

George Eliot does not shy away from a difficult conversation. We’re continuing our #BookClub with another deep dive into Eliot’s Middlemarch! 📚 Join the club: www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club #classicbooks #BookSky #Middlemarch #GeorgeEliot

No matter how you feel about #GrahamGreene, you’re sure to enjoy Margery Allingham’s “The Tiger in the Smoke” 😶‍🌫️. 🎧 Tune into the last in our Queens of Crime series, wherever you get your podcasts! 🔗👆 or visit podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q... #SecretLifeOfBooks #Mystery #BookSky #History

What is it about the “Golden Age” of detective fiction that makes these novels so appealing? Margery Allingham, a #QueenOfCrime herself, has answered this very question. ➡ 🎧 Listen to this latest episode, wherever you get your podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky #AgathaChristie

NEW EPISODE: A serial killer on the loose in the foggy, battle-scarred streets of London after the Second World War. Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke (1952) is #BleakHouse meets 1984 meets #SilenceOfTheLambs. Catch the last in our Queens of Crime series: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q...

🎭 To see or not to see? #Hamnet 🎬 With the realse of Hamet, adapted from #MaggieOFarrell's much-loved novel, we though it time to re-release one of our earliest episodes! 🎧 Listen to this special re-release all about Hamnet, wherever you get your podcasts!

This week, we're not only doing a #MissMarple story, we're looking at what Marple meant to #AgathaChristie when she invented her. 🎧 Tune into this episode now, wherever you listen to podcasts! or visit: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q... #SecretLifeOfBooks #classicbooks #BookSky #DetectiveFiction

Last year we covered #AgathaChristie in celebration of #MurderOfRogerAckroyd's 100th birthday! We weren't planning another Christie ep. But could we seriously finish a mini series on the Queens of Crime without Christie? Obviously, the answer is no. What Christie do you think we'll cover this time?

⭐ Why read George Eliot's Middlemarch? Ask #EmilyDickinson: "What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory?” And if that's not a good enough reason, we're hosting a dedicated Middlemarch Book Club for subscribers to the Secret Life of Books! 📚🔗: www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club

#GeorgeEliot used her incredibly rigorous, well informed intellect to create events in Middlemarch. This week, we explore the wonderful chronicle that is Middlemarch. Even better, we’re running a book club. 🔗 www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club #SecretLifeOfBooks #Middlemarch #BookClub

George Eliot paints Dorothea Brooke through the eyes of male artists in Book 2 of Middlemarch. This week we’re back with another deep dive into Eliot’s Middlemarch 📚. Join our book club to read along with us: www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club #Middlemarch #GeorgeEliot #BookClub #BookSky

We're diving back into George Eliot's Middlemarch. This week, Sophie calls in from Italy.. very fitting for this book! 📚 Join the book club to access exclusive bonus episodes every two weeks, in-depth reading notes, & more! 🔗 www.secretlifeofbooks.org/book-club #BookSky

🧺 🍾 Vintage Murder is the Picnic at Hanging Rock of New Zealand fiction. This week, we’re revisiting the #QueensOfCrime with one of the great detective novels, Vintage Murder by NZ author Ngaio Marsh. 🎧 Out now, wherever you get your podcasts! 🔗👆 visit apple.co/slob #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

📜🖋🕵🏻 The Donnington Affair was an open-eneded short story that posed a challenge to leading mystery writers of the time, asking them to solve the crime. To hear more, tune into our bonus episode on the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, with #JamesRuncie. 🔗 www.secretlifeofbooks.org/podcast-1/ep...

We’re back with another episode in our mini-series on the #QueensOfCrime - Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham. 🍾 Today we’re talking all about ‘Vintage Murder’ by Ngaio Marsh. 🎧 Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts! #SecretLifeOfBooks #BookSky

🍾 #VintageMurder is locked room mystery set in a provincial playhouse in New Zealand. What makes it a masterpiece of the genre is the way that Ngaio Marsh uses her story to make a deeper investigation into the white colonial experience. 🎧 Episode out tomorrow, wherever you listen to podcasts!

BONUS EP: We're joined with #JamesRuncie, authour of the acclaimed Grandchester Mysteries, to uncover the inspiration behind his novels. podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/b... #BookSky

#JamesRuncie is author of the acclaimed #GrantchesterMysteries - a six book series and a hugely successful ITV television series. This week, James chats to Jonty about where he finds the gold in the Golden Age of Crime. 🎧 Out now, wherever you get your podcasts!🔗👆 or visit apple.co/slob #BookSky