24. Jane Austen, Nazis and Murder: The Ultimate Summer Reading List

Which books should you take on your summer holiday? How have some of Dominic and Tabby’s favourite destinations shaped these novels? And, what makes a summer classic? Email us: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ For analysis, book recommendations and more, sign up to our newsletter, Book Club Notes, introduced weekly by Tabby or Dominic. Sign up at: https://www.thebookclubhq.com/ Instagram: ⁠⁠@bookclubpodhq⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠@thebookclubpodhq⁠⁠ X: ⁠⁠@bookclubpodhq⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠@TheBookClubPodHQ⁠⁠ Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Social Producer: Harry Balden Video Editor: Caroline Kaye Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:40Speaker 05

  There was so much time that marvelous summer. Day after day, mist rose from the meadow as the sky lightened and hedges, barns, and woods took shape, until, at last, the long, curving back of the hills lifted away from the plain. It was a sort of stage magic. Now you don't see. Indeed, there is nothing to see. Day after day, it was like that. And each morning, I leaned on the yard gate, dragging at my first fag, and I'd like to think, marveling at the splendid backcloth. But it can't have been so. I'm not the marveling kind. Or was I then? But one thing is sure, I had a feeling of immense content. And if I thought at all, it was that I'd like this to go on and on.

• 2:23Speaker 05

  No one going, no one coming. Autumn and winter always loitering around the corner. Summer's ripeness lasting forever. Nothing disturbing the even tenor of my way. As I think someone may have said before me. So hello, everybody. Welcome to the book club. That was from A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, with which Dominic and I are now both very familiar because we recently recorded it on the show and it will be coming to the book club in August, I think.

• 2:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think so. Yeah, perfect for summer.

• 2:52Speaker 05

  Perfect for summer. And it is indeed a wonderfully elusive, haunting story about loss and beauty and art. And it's set in the aftermath of the First World War and it's in that long, hot summer of 1920. And so with summer at the forefront of our minds, we thought, well, we should probably do a summer reading bonus. So each of us has picked out three books that we think are fun reads, you know, escapist and gripping in different ways that you can take on holiday with you to some, you know, appropriately summery places, sometimes tied into the book, and other times less so. But yeah, Dominic, take it, take it away.

• 3:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, first of all, summer reading. Summer reading is quite a special experience, isn't it? Because you've basically got a week or two away from the office or whatever, or away from school or university or whatever it might be.

• 3:42Speaker 05

  Away from your desk where you read endlessly, to read endlessly on a beach.

• 3:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  But I actually genuinely would, I do take loads of books on holiday. And one of the joys for me of going on holiday is, is doing loads of reading. When I think back to when I was a child, so our producer Nicole said, oh, have a think about your summer reading experiences. And actually, the one that really sticks out for me, so I went on holiday with my parents on a sort of 1980s package holiday. And I ran out of books in this terrible hotel, which I think was in like Rhodes or Crete or somewhere, like this sort of high-rise monolith. And they had a little bookshop in the lobby. And not many English language books, and I bought this one. It was a historical novel about the Cathars. And it really stuck in my mind because I was about 11 or 12, and it was the first book I'd ever read that had sex scenes in it and descriptions of female nudity.

• 4:30Speaker 05

  So presumably at this point, you were sparring.

• 4:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  I was just like going redder and redder.

• 4:35Speaker 05

  Twitching.

• 4:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  I was going kind of bright red. And what was worse was, it was like a comical mishap with the hotel. So the booking had all gone wrong. And instead of having two rooms, like me and my brother in one room, my parents in another, we all had to share the same room. Which I remember, like, my brother and I were, thought it was quite fun, but my parents, my brother was like six or something, but my parents were gutted. And I couldn't, we couldn't understand why they were so gutted. Anyway.

• 4:58Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 4:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I was reading this book and I kept thinking, oh, my God, I hope my parents don't see what I'm reading. But just kind of, it was like a sort of, my, my, this sort of nuclear bomb was in my head or something, getting bigger and bigger. And I was about to explode.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  So your innocence lost.

• 5:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  Totally. So that's my most memorable summer reading experience.

• 5:16Speaker 05

  I actually had something quite similar. Because, you know, I was gonna say, well, presumably this book didn't look, you know, saucy, it didn't exactly look like the Kama Sutra. Like presumably it just had, I don't know, like a castle on it or something. So I had something similar. I went on holiday and the house that I went to, I finished my book halfway through and there were, you know, we didn't have Kindles and stuff like that. So, and I just didn't know what to do. And I think this is probably why, that fear of, it's quite pretentious, I know, but being left without a book, I hate, which is why I like to have two on the go at one time. So I got stuck with this dilemma. I was without a book. And I found in the bookshelves of this house, something that looked wonderfully historical. And I was very into history. I was about eight or nine, maybe. And it

• 5:57Speaker 05

  was Philippa Gregory's, the, I think it was called The Virgin's Fool or something. And it's about this girl from Spain, at the high point of the Inquisition, who comes over to England because she's escaping persecution, because she's a Jew. She comes into contact with Elizabeth I as a young girl, and Mary Tudor, whatever. But the important thing to say is that Philippa Gregory's books can be extremely raunchy.

• 6:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Saucy.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  Saucy, bodice rippers. The Queen's Fool, that's what it was called, The Queen's Fool, had Such passages in it. And my mum thought it was fantastic. I was really getting into the Tudors, you know, getting understanding of the geopolitical situation during that period or whatever it was. And so she was like, this is brilliant. And she bought me like 10 Philip Gregory books to read for the next few months. And I was just slowly like consuming like sex scene after sex scene.

• 6:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  As an eight or nine year old. And my teacher at school was like, your mum's bought those for you. Like, is she okay? Are you okay? And I was very, very sad when I got rumbled.

• 6:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, did you know this is Sam Brook Jr.'s experience with Game of Thrones?

• 6:57Speaker 05

  I do know this to be true.

• 6:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  My dad bought him Game of Thrones. I'd read the book, but I was like, I think it's much tamer than the TV series.

• 7:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's much tamer than the cathars.

• 7:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  And then I kind of opened it to try to justify this to somebody, I think to my wife, and said, look at this, it's absolutely fine. And it fell open on this page. And I was like, oh, God, it's terrible.

• 7:15Speaker 05

  Presumably that's the night the Daenerys Targaryen, it's her wedding night with Khal Drogo.

• 7:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  It was that scene. And I knew he'd already read it. And he said, yes, I did discuss it with people at school. And I was like, of course you did. Anyway, we've got massively off track.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Off track, as usual.

• 7:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Let's get to this first summer read. So.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  So what's your first summer read? Why this one? And is it associated with any particular location for you?

• 7:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  So first of all, I thought, I like, I'm a big fan of islands. I like going to islands on holiday.

• 7:40Speaker 05

  Sorry, say more. You like islands?

• 7:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  I like an island. If I'm on holiday, I like the experience of island hopping or similar. So for example, the islands of the Adriatic. I like a boat trip. I'm obsessed with boat trips.

• 7:52Speaker 05

  You're a yacht man?

• 7:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  I'm not a yacht man. I'm more of, I like a ferry.

• 7:55Speaker 05

  Private yacht.

• 7:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  The book is one of the most famous books ever written, set on an island. It is Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. So lots of listeners will know that this book was originally published under a different title, which I don't propose to mention on the show because I don't want us to be cancelled. But the title was changed for, I think, fairly understandable reasons. The book was published in 1939. And it's set on a place, in the book it's called Soldier Island, but it's based on a real place that I've actually been to, and it's called Berg Island, and it's just off the Devon coast. And basically, if you go there, there's this big beach, and there's this sort of sea tractor that takes you, when the tide goes out, across the channel to this island. And on the island, there's an Art Deco hotel, a hotel that's actually now been restored, and it's in amazing kind of Art Deco condition.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  I read an article about this. You can literally only get there when-

• 8:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, by the sea tractor.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  By the sea tractor, yeah.

• 8:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, when the tide is out.

• 8:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, amazing. Agatha Christie stayed at this hotel, and they now, it's very much a place that you go for Agatha Christie nights, or murder mystery nights and stuff. Yeah, they completely buy into it, and you can understand why. Because the book is one of her most famous, one of her most celebrated. I think Agatha Christie, I mean, we are going to do Agatha Christie on the show in a few months.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, quite special circumstances.

• 9:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  In special circumstances, exactly. And I think she is one of the most underrated modern writers. People have always decried her fiction as very underwritten, but I think, actually think she's a master, or indeed a mistress, of releasing information to you. But also, she's got a really dark view of human nature, this idea that kind of we are all potential killers, and that crime, evil is often born out of weakness, and out of jealousy, and all of this. I love all this. I love her side of sense of psychology.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  I remember you discussed this on a Sherlock Holmes episode, and I thought it was very, very interesting. You compared the fact that he sort of has these grand scales, and this, you know, in the hand of Baskerville's supernatural element, whereas with her, it's kind of like the guy, you know, you're the person you feel you know, the person that shares a bed with you every night. What are they hiding?

• 9:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 05

  The living room is full of dark secrets, not, I don't know, the moorlands.

• 9:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's domestic, and the people, the person who's going to kill you is either motivated by, it's either money or sexual jealousy in Agatha Christie's fiction. And in this particular book, it's such a brilliant, it's such a brilliant conceit. It's these 10 people who get an invitation to, an unexpected invitation, to basically a sort of weekend party on this island. And they're like, oh, well, it sounds great, why not go? And it's from a mysterious person called Mr. U N O N. I mean, it's unknown, basically. And they go.

• 10:32Speaker 05

  And none of them think to question this.

• 10:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, because then there'd be no story.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  And they all go, and the 10 people all have dark secrets.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  Of course they do.

• 10:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  When they get there, they find out that he's not there, but this kind of tape recorded message, if I remember right. And then, I mean, without giving, I mean, it was published in 1939. This isn't a massive spoiler, that the conceit is, one by one, they start to die. And they are being punished for.

• 10:57Speaker 05

  These dark secrets.

• 10:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. Things they did wrong, crimes they committed that have never been uncovered. They're a cross section of society, men and women, from a sort of nervous young woman to a kind of sort of septuagenarian judge or something. They become terrified and they start to turn on each other a little bit, sort of Lord of the Flies or something. There's this mood of growing darkness. Basically, if somebody is dying every couple of chapters, so it's absolutely gripping. And I think it's, I think it's the kind of book that once you, even if you dismiss Agatha Christie, I reckon if you start reading it, you will find it very hard to put it down.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  Is that your favourite Agatha Christie or is that the one that you most associate with a particular holiday in the summer?

• 11:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's not my favourite, but I associate it with this place because we went there a few years ago to this beach and to this hotel. And I think the fact that it's on an island, you're isolated in a hotel on holiday. I just think it works. It's a really nice match for the holiday experience.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  I like that. I think that's an excellent choice. And yeah, I'd love to get my hands on it. Okay, so my first choice.

• 11:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 05

  It's an obvious combination. So it's going to be sun, sea and Nazis.

• 11:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay.

• 11:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. I have chosen Fatherland by Robert Harris. And I silently and consciously read it on a beach holiday that I was on last year. And, you know, it was actually a natural fit because this place that I was staying at, there wasn't loads to do.

• 12:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Where was the place, Debbie? Just out of interest?

• 12:13Speaker 05

  I think it was Devon.

• 12:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  It wasn't Devon.

• 12:16Speaker 05

  It was Devon.

• 12:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  It was the Maldives.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  Oh, Dominic, you're going to make me start talking about package holidays. No, what did I say? Companion vouchers.

• 12:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, sorry. It was the Maldives. But there's not a lot to do because you, as you say, you're like on a, you're like on an island. And to be honest, you could carry out a fantastic murder mystery in the Maldives because you're boated out to like this island with like 200 other people. You're all staying in this one place and there's nowhere else to go. There's not much to do. So I literally lay in the sun for a couple of days, reading, and I think I devoured Fatherland because it is totally gripping. So what's it about? It's the ultimate what if. It reimagines a world in which the Nazis triumphed in World War II. So it's set in 1964 in Germany. It follows a detective who is investigating what initially seems

• 13:05Speaker 05

  to be an ordinary murder, but he quickly discovers that there is this conspiracy at the heart of it. And it extends to the very top of the regime. I'm not going to spoil anything because really, this is, it's, you can't put it down. And I don't want to ruin it for people that are considering reading it on their next beach holiday. But it's brilliant. It's a thriller. The pace is brilliant. It has very brisk pacing, short chapters. The tension builds. There's this sense of slightly grotesque mystery in the background. And the strange thing is as well, is if you know the history of the Second World War, or at least you know what the Nazis did, which, you know, I think most people do, your pre-knowledge combined with this strange, alien, but yet believable world, and the

• 13:49Speaker 05

  growing understanding of the reality of what has happened, is very unnerving. And the world building is, I think, is excellent because he doesn't explain anything. He just will put details into this reimagined Europe, you know, everyday details, street names, political names, what, you know, the fact that who's on the throne in England, the condition in America that make you, like, it really does pack out every corner of a reality in which the Nazis might have won. And it's very, very engaging. And I couldn't put it down. And it really sped up what could have been quite a dull holiday.

• 14:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a dull holiday. Wow.

• 14:26Speaker 05

  No, it wasn't. It was a fantastic holiday.

• 14:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Your travelling companion would be delighted to hear that.

• 14:32Speaker 05

  Well, no, it was a wonderful holiday. It was a wonderful holiday.

• 14:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  I can just imagine him listening to this, his face, the smile fading.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  He'll be thrilled because he read it straight after me because I, you know,

• 14:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  You recommended it. You were like, God, this is so boring. You have to read this book.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  And I thought, well, maybe now we can talk about it. So.

• 14:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right. Yeah. Find something to talk about. Brilliant.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  My poor fiance is getting a massive kicking right now.

• 14:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  So it's the book that made Robert Harris's name really, isn't it?

• 14:56Speaker 05

  It was a very big hit. So it was published in 1992 in the UK and it became an international bestseller almost straight away. And as you say, it made his name.

• 15:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Tabi, you know, I know Robert Harris.

• 15:05Speaker 05

  I do know this and I've always been very envious. And I think my, one of the times I've been most starstruck was when I produced on The Rest is History, an episode that you did with him.

• 15:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  I remember that so well.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  I was kind of a drooling mess confronted by this guy whose books I've always so enjoyed.

• 15:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  You said after we did it, I said, what did you think of that? And you used an expression that I've never, I've seen written down, but I've never heard anybody use. You said, I was pink with glee.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Oh God, I use that all the time.

• 15:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Well, there you go. So you were pink with glee. That's brilliant. And Robert Harris, I interviewed him in Covid for a literary festival. It was like an online theme. They moved online. And he, he was exactly, it's the first time I'd really met him, sort of virtually. And he was exactly like I'd hoped he would be. He was sitting, because he's obviously made a lot of money from his books. And he was sitting in this fantastic library in his house. And he was sitting there in this sort of leather armchair facing the camera and smoking an enormous cigar.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  I was actually going to say that as a joke, but sincerely.

• 16:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, that's genuinely what he was doing. Anyway, I read, I recommend Fatherland to people as well. I read it. My experience of yours is in the Maldives. I read it on a bus in Wolverhampton and I remember.

• 16:14Speaker 05

  I think that's very glamorous.

• 16:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  And I remember like hoping that the bus would travel more slowly.

• 16:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, totally.

• 16:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because there'd be a traffic jam or something because I didn't want to get off the bus because I had like 20 pages to go. And it's the bit where he's, he's basically found what the mystery is all about.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  He goes to Switzerland.

• 16:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Which has been sort of nagging at us the whole time because we of course know the story of the Third Reich. Anyway, it's a great book. It's an absolute, you know, if you're after a thriller, I think there are a few better.

• 16:40Speaker 05

  He does thrillers so well, like The Second Sleep. But then, you know, like he did Precipice more recently. And that was a quiet, steady book that I thought about Asquith. In the build up to the first one, I thought that was brilliant. It's one of his best.

• 16:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  You like that? I think sometimes they're better, the setups than the resolution.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  I agree. I don't want to speak ill of the great man, but I think sometimes the final portion tails off a bit, the pacing goes awry, not however in Fatherland.

• 17:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I'm now going to choose my second book. I am going to Italy. Lots of people like going to Italy. And if you're sort of, you know, a high-end traveller like me, Tabby, you might go to, or James Bond, you might go to the Amalfi.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  He who loves a ferry.

• 17:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, you might go to the Amalfi Coast. Some very good ferries at the Amalfi Coast, by the way, because you can get a ferry to Capri or to Ischia. So it's just outside Naples. So actually, we went there for our honeymoon, went to Naples and the Amalfi Coast, and I read this book then. So it stuck in my mind because it was set in this place. And the book is The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  You know what? That is a truly exquisite choice. Good for you.

• 17:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, thank you. That's kind. So you've obviously read it, I'm guessing. So for people who don't know, it's published in 1955. Patricia Highsmith, quite a strange woman, quite a dark woman, I think, with a very bleak view of human nature. She'd already published books like Strangers on a Train that have made her name, but The Talented Mr. Ripley is probably her best-known book now.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  Definitely, because of that movie.

• 18:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because of the film and then the TV series. And she takes, she has a brilliant idea, which is basically she takes this incredibly amoral, almost psychopathic central character, Tom Ripley, who is an everyman, and he travels from the US to Italy, and he basically insinuates himself into the lives of these incredibly rich kind of playboy people, rich Americans who are holidaying permanently, they're on like a permanent gap year in southern Italy. And they're very cool, and they really do have the right yachting shoes and the right gear and stuff.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  They really do, yeah. Perfect, like bouffons.

• 18:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, he's very first awkward and ill-attitude. He's not from a rich background, but he works, he copies them, he works his way into their sort of friendship group. There's one guy in particular, played by Jude Law in the film, Dicky Greenleaf.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Beautifully.

• 18:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, he's the ultimate kind of beautiful, posh, rich boy, isn't he?

• 19:02Speaker 05

  There's an element, I think we discussed this very briefly in our secret history episode that we did a while ago. I think that this was probably a big influence on the secret history, the idea of someone from a different class trying to inveigle his way into who considers to be the upper echelons of society.

• 19:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think it's, so I think it's got links to a few books we've done on the show, actually. So The Secret History, The Great Gatsby, so the idea of the outsider coming in and trying to pretend to be something he's not, the American, the idea of reinvention, but also actually, American Psycho. We're about to record an episode on American Psycho, and in American Psycho, obviously, the central character, you know, we are, in a sense, complicit in his crimes.

• 19:42Speaker 05

  I could not agree more. You're so, that's what I've been thinking about, kind of, non-stop for the last two days, that element of when you read books like this and you're like, ought I to be enjoying this? Or ought I to feel ashamed?

• 19:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. And tell us, Mr Ripley, you want him to succeed. He's a hero.

• 19:58Speaker 05

  You do, you do.

• 19:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  But he goes through the book, because he basically turns, spoiler alert, he starts killing people, and, because he has to, he's driven to it because he's going to be found out as an impostor and whatnot. And you absolutely, you know, you're on his side, you're on his team, even as you're appalled by what he's doing. I think that's a huge element of it, the sort of self-reinvention, but also the location. You know, the Amalfi Coast is, it's real honeymoon territory, it's picture postcards, it's the sort of, you've got the sea, you've got the cliffs, you've got these little, sort of, Italian villages clinging to the side. It's drenched in the world of kind of 1950s Italy, so it's kind of ice creams and that kind of Italian.

• 20:36Speaker 05

  The birth of pasta.

• 20:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, what is it, like, carbonara invented in 1978 or whatever, exactly. So I think it's a wonderful book, and if you haven't read it, you will definitely enjoy reading on holiday.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  That's an excellent selection.

• 20:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  And what's yours? I bet you're gonna go, you're gonna go really highbrow and blow me out of the water.

• 20:53Speaker 05

  Oh, I hate to do this to you, but I am, I'm afraid.

• 20:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, okay.

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. So you say that, you know, it has that, the setting, how, you know, when you're, when you're reading on holiday, so often, the setting can become totally intertwined with and associated with, with a book.

• 21:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  So for instance, Cersei, for me, I always think of like, the sea and everything like that, obviously. But this book, that I'm, my next pick, is very much intertwined with kind of the English countryside for me, because I would come here on holiday in the summers. And this is Emma by Jane Austen.

• 21:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow, you have gone highbrow.

• 21:24Speaker 05

  I have gone highbrow, I just want to show everybody. The real intellectual is on this podcast.

• 21:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  So it's written between January eighteen fourteen and March eighteen fifteen, after she'd written, Jane Austen had written Mansfield Park. And then it's published in December eighteen fifteen, and it's set basically at the same time, like the eighteen tens.

• 21:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  And it's set in an imagined village called Highbury in Surrey, and it follows this heroine, Emma, over the course of roughly a year, as she kind of maneuvers herself through the society of that wonderful kind of Jane Austen world, you know, everyone's drinking tea and going to balls and the stakes aren't that high, and yet they are so high. And it's wonderfully bitchy and witty. And the other thing is, much of the novel actually unfolds, you know, on walks in the English countryside and garden parties and kind of picnics and strawberry picking. Like, there's this famous trip to Box Hill.

• 22:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  I was about to say, Box Hill, yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 05

  Exactly. It's this kind of warm pastoral setting, which felt so appropriate to reading it on these trips to the English countryside, say, with my aunt and my uncle. And it's very, very funny. And Emma herself is a very polarizing heroine. And when the book was published, she divided opinion. Some people loathed her and therefore couldn't get behind the book, and some people really liked her. And Jane Austen herself said, I'm creating a heroine who no one but myself will much like, because she is very flawed, she's petulant, she's childish, she's spoiled, she jumps to conclusions that she ought not to, she can be quite harsh with people, quite judgmental. But she is so amusing, and for some reason, I don't know, I've always rooted for her, and the dialogue is sparkly and witty. I

• 23:00Speaker 05

  was just obsessed with, I think I used to honestly dress up. I used to kind of get my mum's sun hats and try to turn them into bonnets and stuff.

• 23:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Oh. And yeah, it's, and it's a very easy read as well. It's, you know, the plot's fairly simplistic, and yet you're kind of hooked with every page. You want to know what happens next. You want to know whether Emma will succeed in trying to set everyone in Highbury up, essentially. Will she herself find love? It's very rewarding. It's very rewarding.

• 23:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  In literary terms, it's very sophisticated, isn't it?

• 23:28Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because basically, there's such an irony between what, you know, it's one of the great examples in literature of Emma sees everything one way.

• 23:36Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 23:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  You know, she plans everybody's future and she judges everybody's character and she's totally and utterly wrong. And I can't think of many examples before that in literature of a heroine, you know, somebody with whom we're invited to kind of sympathise and we see the world through her eyes. But about two thirds of the way through, it dawns on us that she is utterly mistaken about everything. The story is her realising how wrong she was.

• 23:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, and kind of growing up and even though she's wrong, you still want her to be happy and she feels real guilt and remorse as well. And it's this wonderful, Jane Austen has this wonderful way of voicing a character without you actively always being in her head. So you get a very strong sense of her from the outside with this slightly satirical, knowing voice guiding you through it all. One of my favourite books ever, I think, by one of my favourite authors. So I would say it's a fantastic summer read.

• 24:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, brilliant. So let's go darker with the next one.

• 24:30Speaker 05

  Always you, bringing us down from our highs.

• 24:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, well, this should appeal to you, Tabby, because I know that you like, you love visiting like historical sites on holiday.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, I have a real weakness.

• 24:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  You probably do it more than I do.

• 24:43Speaker 05

  I think I probably do.

• 24:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  If there's some like crumbling monastery or something, you're absolutely there.

• 24:48Speaker 05

  I made my fiancee drive me to Weyland Smithy for a bank holiday.

• 24:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  And what did you think of it?

• 24:54Speaker 05

  I loved it. People always say, oh, it's so disappointing. I didn't. It's so, places like that, those ancient sites, you know, old ruins, so full of possibility.

• 25:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, well, I thought it was.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  I know, it doesn't do it for you.

• 25:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a massive trudge from the car park, no?

• 25:06Speaker 05

  It is a massive trudge from the car park, but if you're, you know, vigorous and spry, no challenge.

• 25:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  Then you don't, well, I didn't want it a challenge, I just found it boring.

• 25:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  Also, okay, so that's Weyland Smithy, but the possibility of advertising from them has now well and truly disappeared. So you might, some people here might be thinking, I'd love to go to the monastery of San Michele in Piedmont.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  You know, it's amazing. You took the words straight out of my mouth.

• 25:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Or they may be thinking, do you know what, it's good, but there are better monasteries in Germany. And if I was going to film, if I was going to make a film based on an Italian monastery, I'd probably shoot it in Germany. If you're one of those people, you're laughing because the book I'm about to choose is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. So it's another mystery. I make no apology for that because I love whodunnits.

• 25:55Speaker 05

  And for holiday, yeah, nothing better.

• 25:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, of course, of course. For holiday reading, a whodunit or a mystery, you absolutely need it. So Umberto Eco wrote this book and published it in 1980, and it was a truly gigantic worldwide hit, won lots of awards. And then there was a film of it made in 1986. It is set in 1327 in an unnamed monastery in northern Italy. And our heroes, they're sort of Holmes and Watson duo. They're a monk called William of Baskerville, there's a sort of a literary nod, and his sort of apprentice or whatever, or his novice, who's called, I think, Adso of Milk, and there's an Abi of Milk in. And in the film, they're Sean Connery and Christian Slater. And they arrive and there is a series of crimes, murders

• 26:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  at the monastery, monks are dying, and they have blackened fingers and blackened tongues, and we don't really know why. And Umberto Eco, who was a professor of kind of semiotics in Italy, and absolutely steeped in history and literature, this whole book is drenched in, first of all, it's drenched in 14th century history. So the rivalry between the Franciscans and the Dominicans, between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, the papacy is in Avignon, not Rome at this point. There's loads of the kind of political background and whatnot, and the sort of ecclesiastical politics, which might make it sound a bit dry. But also, the actual whodunit element is riveting. It's narrated by the young Christian Slater character himself. For people who are interested in literature, it is also a book about books.

• 27:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a very postmodern book. There are lots of in-jokes. The William of Baskerville is obviously a Sherlock Holmes in-joke.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  It's like a literary treasure hunt, almost.

• 27:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  Totally is.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  I don't think I got that when I read it because I was a teenager. I think, I think your experience of reading it later in life would have been so much richer than mine because I wasn't aware of all of these.

• 27:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I've read it twice. I read it most recently and really picked up on all this. So for example, one of the big characters is modeled on another monk, he's the librarian, he's modeled on the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

• 27:52Speaker 05

  Is he really?

• 27:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  And the library, he's called Jorge of Burgos. The library that's at the centre of the monastery and is the centre of the story, this sort of secret library is based on the libraries that Borges wrote about in, for example, in the short story The Library of Babel. So there's loads of in-jokes and stuff, but you don't, I mean, even beyond that. So I first read this as a, on another family holiday, right? Another package holiday to like Greece or something.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  You've got to stop doing this to yourself, having these sort of like teenage awakenings.

• 28:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, wait, get this, right? So you want like a teenage awakening?

• 28:24Speaker 05

  Totally all.

• 28:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  I read this book and there were sections in Latin. And at the time, because you don't realise, you don't know why, you sort of skip over these obviously because no one can really read Latin.

• 28:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like the songs in Lord of the Rings.

• 28:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, some people read the songs, some people don't, and that's poor. Or the Hamilton sections in East of Eden.

• 28:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Anyway, there's the bits in Latin.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  The internet is coming after you again.

• 28:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know, again. I'm just doing it to provoke them. And when I was reading it at the time, I thought, well, it's kind of obvious what's happening. These are like sex scenes or stuff that Adso Annarator is embarrassed by. And then a few years later, I decided, I was at home with my parents, we decided to watch the film of The Name of the Rose. And I'd forgotten about this element of it. And I was probably then about like 13 or 14. And I remember watching this film with my parents. And then

• 29:12Speaker 05

  Such a poor decision.

• 29:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  There's this peasant girl who comes in, like, the Christian sacer finds her in the kitchen, he finds this peasant girl, she's absolutely, she's extremely good looking.

• 29:22Speaker 05

  Right, good. Good, honestly.

• 29:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  He disrobes, he disrobes this peasant girl. And this was the first time I'd ever seen a scene like this on TV. But the worst thing was watching it with my parents.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  Oh god, that's actually one of the most awkward things.

• 29:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's mortifying.

• 29:37Speaker 05

  I had that with Love Actually when I was young. Oof, not good.

• 29:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, insanely, I had that with Basic Instinct.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Oh my god, you watched Basic Instinct with your parents?

• 29:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know, mad.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  That's just inviting. Family drama.

• 29:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  It so is. Anyway, so that was a traumatic experience. However, the name of the rose is great.

• 29:57Speaker 05

  Back to the book.

• 29:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  We'll definitely have to do it on the show. So that will give you the opportunity to tell this anecdote again.

• 30:02Speaker 05

  Oh, good.

• 30:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  This is literally like your Hilary Mantel story.

• 30:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, I'll work on it and it'll be better. It'll be more embellish it. Yeah. So Name of the Rose, brilliant. And now, Tabby, your final choice.

• 30:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. So my final choice, I'm going to take us even further back. So I'm going to take us back to the late, to late 5th century Britain, because my final pick would be The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell. And this is the first book of his Warlord Chronicles, which is a historical, I suppose, fairly, you know, supposedly realistic retelling of the King Arthur story.

• 30:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 05

  But it is not set in its traditional sort of medieval chivalric setting, which is, you know, when the King Arthur stories became popularised. It is set in the late 5th century Britain, as I say, approximately kind of 480 to 500 AD. And it's after the Romans have withdrawn from Britain around 410 AD. And this is what we know as, it's kind of a nothing term, but we know as the Dark Ages. And Britain has been, is divided into competing kingdoms. This is kind of Bernard Cornwell's speciality, isn't it? Because he also does The Last Kingdom. And the Saxon invaders are pushing west. And while all of this is happening, the old pagan religions, and there's an element of magical realism to this, because you never really know if the magic in the book is real.

• 31:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 05

  Or if nothing's really happening and, and it's just kind of the force of people's personalities. Because the old magic and the old pagan religions are dying because Christianity is on the rise and Christianity and the old pagan religions come into conflict. And Arthur is not a king in this book. He is merely a gifted warlord who has been given the future King of Britain, young Mordred, taken him to ward essentially. And the setting is glorious. It is so believable and immersive. It's the Dark Ages, you know, brought to life because there are muddy battlefields. Everyone stinks. You know, it's tribal kingdoms and monasteries, these rugged landscapes.

• 31:59Speaker 05

  Everything feels incredibly vivid. Arthur is the Arthur that you want him to be. If you love the King Arthur legend, which I know you do as well.

• 32:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Speaker 05

  There's nothing disappointing about him, but our narrator is a guy called Dervil. And he's kind of a soldier who rises up alongside Arthur. And all the characters in it are extremely wonderfully real and sort of believable. Cause you have Arthur, you have Dervil Caddan, you have Merlin, who is.

• 32:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's a druid, isn't he?

• 32:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's a far cry from the Merlin of, I don't know, mythology. He's this eccentric, enigmatic, slightly odd druid. He's constantly talking about eating cheese and, and it, and it kind of catapults you between very dark, bloody realism. And fantastical, epic, almost fantasy. And I remember, I think some one of our sort of earliest actual proper conversations on The Rest is History, and I said, I loved this book. And I remember you like, I love that book.

• 32:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 05

  And I'd never really come across anyone else. I was so annoyed that it wasn't his big hit because I loved it so much. And I know I always say this of so many books, but I really have gone back and read it many times.

• 33:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  It was a foundational bonding moment, Tabby.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a foundational bonding moment of this show. And I hope listeners are wiping away tears from their eyes. And it's just fantastic. It's so enjoyable. And I actually reread it last on a trip to, you say, like, sort of old historical ruins, on a trip to Hadrian's Wall. And the setting couldn't have been more perfect. You could stand on the wall and imagine, you know.

• 33:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  I can so imagine you doing that.

• 33:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's so you to take it to Hadrian's Wall.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  We're sobbing in the background, not another one.

• 33:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, he was traumatized enough by the Maldives and now he's been forced to go to Hadrian's Wall.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, as well as Waylon Smithy.

• 33:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, and Waylon Smithy, oh my God.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  I know, poor guy.

• 33:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  So, um, yeah, I, I agree with you actually. So I've read quite a lot of the Bernard Cornwall's books, never the Sharp books, but I've read the Last Kingdom. And I think these are in a different league. There was an ITV version adaptation, which I refused to watch because I thought the trailer made it look rubbish.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  I agree. Don't even talk to me about that. The trailer condemned it for me.

• 34:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, but I think you're right actually, that Bernard Cornwall's books are quite sort of.

• 34:09Speaker 05

  Earthy.

• 34:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  They're quite earthy, aren't they? They're quite, they're, they're very, they're quite, there's a grittiness to them. They're very readable, but they're kind of, they are unsentimental, I think.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I think, have you ever watched Vikings, the historical?

• 34:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, of course.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I always think that style of shooting, that style.

• 34:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Is what they should do with The Winter King.

• 34:28Speaker 05

  Is what they should do with The Winter King.

• 34:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 05

  Because it's kind of, you know, Dervil's always saying how smelly he is and, and it's actually quite romantic. Like they do, he does Guinevere so well.

• 34:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  So isn't this one of the interesting things, I mean, there's actually, there's a lot to talk about with this. We should do this on the show.

• 34:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  So with The Winter King, Guinevere and Lancelot are kind of horrible, aren't they? Isn't that the point of them?

• 34:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, Guinevere is more complex than that though, because she sort of comes good. But yes, Lancelot is an antagonist.

• 34:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  And commits, you know, terrible crimes against King Arthur and Dervil.

• 34:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's arrogant and he's kind of.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  He's a frank.

• 34:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's a frank, that's right.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  He's always brushing his hair, his long, luscious hair, because you know, he's, you know, in the myth, it's, you know, beautiful, handsome Sir Lancelot. He's not chivalrous, you know, chivalrous at all.

• 35:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's a massive showbunny. But the other thing that I was going to say was why I think your analogy with the Vikings TV series is good is because in the Vikings TV series, there is a kind of slightly magical realist element.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  There is.

• 35:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  There's that weird character, Flocky, who's like always, um, like, I don't know, communing with the gods. Yeah, exactly.

• 35:28Speaker 05

  And, you know, in, in Vikings, he'll turn around and see a raven and you think, oh, is that Odin? In this, you think, oh, is, is this cauldron that they have to dig up to save Britain and, and the pagan religions? You know, is that going to save them? Does that save them or is that just kind of a lucky coincidence, you know?

• 35:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's the second book, isn't it?

• 35:44Speaker 05

  The Battle of Barden.

• 35:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, all good.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  Fantastic.

• 35:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  They go to, um, the second book, they go to get this cauldron at Anglesey.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  And actually, Anglesey is where I've been spending a lot of my time, because you know, I'm doing this Welsh walk with my mates.

• 35:55Speaker 05

  I do indeed, yeah, your very own odyssey.

• 35:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  We're walking around the coast of Wales and we've got to Anglesey and it's gutting because at that point you have to stop. And to finish the walk, you've got to walk around the whole coast of Anglesey.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  And a lot of Anglesey.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  So you think you're done.

• 36:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, there's nothing there.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Worry not, there are about 20 more pubs to conquer. We should ask Nicole if we can, if we can do this book in Anglesey.

• 36:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow, that would be amazing. Also, I could knock off some of the walk, which would be good.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, brilliant.

• 36:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  You can only choose one. You can choose one to recommend to people of your three books, which is it?

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Okay, so we're going on holiday, ask the whole production team, we're on holiday to Anglesey. Which book are we taking?

• 36:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  Okay, okay, I can only take one, so tough.

• 36:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  You've only got three to choose from, or you could choose one of mine if you want.

• 36:36Speaker 05

  Really, can I? I'm not gonna.

• 36:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, okay.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  I'm actually gonna go with, because just speaking about it, it's probably because it was last on the list and I was so animated by it. I'm gonna go with The Winter King.

• 36:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  I just want to ask you one question and see if I get an honest answer. How many times have you read that book?

• 36:51Speaker 05

  Probably four.

• 36:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's a lot. I think that's a lot.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  But that's what, that's like, that's the whole series. That's the three books.

• 36:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow. Okay. So I can choose one and I'm going to choose The Name of the Rose.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  No, it's okay. Yeah.

• 37:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  Cause I think it's got, I think you can read it purely as a whodunit. Uh, it's because you can read it on so many different levels and it opens the way to so many other books. And it's also longer.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  So you want our listeners to suffer.

• 37:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, no, because Agatha Christie, you'd be done and dusted in two days. The Name of the Rose, you could get a week out of it.

• 37:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's true. The Winter King's like, it's over 400 pages. So plenty of reading to do. So coming up, we have my brilliant friend. So we're back to Italy. Brave New World, For Whom the Bell Tolls. We're in Spain.

• 37:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Spain.

• 37:33Speaker 05

  Rebecca. We're in Cornwall. Lolita.

• 37:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  American road trip. Perfect for an American road trip.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Fun for all the family. Um, Lord of the Flies, A Month in the Country, with which we started this. American Psycho. So we're in New York, I guess.

• 37:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's not really a holiday read.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  It's not a holiday read. I don't like reading before I go to sleep at night. Uh, Jane Eyre, fantastic. Goldfinger, The Bell Jar, White Nights, The Shining. So we're in a creepy hotel. Things Fall Apart, Master and Commander, To Kill a Mockingbird, Money. So you've got a great anecdote about money.

• 38:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Dune, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Norwegian Wood. And that brings us to the end of the year. And then we're starting January with a real bang, but I'm not going to spoil it yet.

• 38:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  So much reading. Do you know, I'm taking American Psycho on holiday.

• 38:25Speaker 05

  Are you? Oh, that's depressing.

• 38:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Which is, that's my, that's my summer reading. On that bombshell, um, Tabby, have a very nice summer and have a nice holiday.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  Thank you. Dominic, have a wonderful time on holiday. You're about, you're, you're, you're off in the blink of an eye.

• 38:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I am. So everybody who's listening, thank you for, uh, supporting the show and, um, have a wonderful summer. Read loads of books and recommend books to us and we'll hopefully do them on the book club.

• 38:48Speaker 05

  Thanks for listening. Bye.

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