Jonty Claypole

Apple Podcasts Charts - Arts Podcasts - Australia Apple Podcasts charts for the Arts category in Australia. View the rankings and see which are the best podcasts to appear on as a sponsor or guest.

Following a Christmas surge in downloads, the Secret life of books is now the most popular books/arts podcast in australia! And we are entirely independent. Grateful to all our supporters and subscribers who have made this happen. Please keep spreading the word!

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What the Dickens have they done to the year 12 English syllabus? Charles Dickens, George Orwell and Sylvia Plath will all disappear from the HSC English syllabus in NSW, but their replacements aren’t too shabby.

piece by me today in the Financial Review about new HSC English syllabus. Watch me pivot from kneejerk outrage at the banishment of Dickens to deep appreciation. The syllabus is richer, more diverse and challenging than before. I also talk about how exciting poetry is in Australia today.

up bright and early to go on ABC Sydney breakfast with Sophie Gee. Talking to Chris Taylor about... classic books, of course.

Amazing seeing Jack white at the Enmore last night. A quarter of a century into his career and hasn’t lost his edge - very loud, very hardcore.

in the studio with Sophie Gee and the amazing Charlotte Wood talking about Elizabeth Strout's My Name Is Lucy Barton for SLoB. Charlotte talked about her love of Strout's work, how it inspired her brilliant Stone Yard Devotional, and reflected on her Booker experience this year. Thank you Charlotte!

The Library Book Club Friends are invited to gather in the Library’s historic Friends Room to listen, chat and share ideas about great books.

Announced today: Secret Life of Books is joining the brilliant Roanna Gonsalves to form the NSW State Library Book Club in 2025. A big step for SLoB. Also, just a great program launch by Caroline Butler-Bowdon and the State Library. Libraries forever!

www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-librar...

Secret Life of Books Club: A Christmas Carol | Secret Life of Books a fun, live, interactive micro-episode on the ultimate yuletide classic, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol

Are you a Scrooge or Tiny Tim when it comes to Xmas? Join us on Dec 17 for our first Secret Life of Books online book club to talk about Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Time: 7pm AEST (Sydney. 8am in UK. America - sorry. We'll make it up later)

REGISTER HERE: www.secretlifeofbooks.org/event-detail...

loved going on Arts Tuesday 89.7fm Eastside with Sophie Gee to talk Secret life of Books earlier with wonderful hosts Suzi and Di. I was v distracted by Art Kane's A Great Day in Harlem on the wall - hence eyes in wrong direction. It's a dangerous picture - you can disappear into it for hours!

Latest episode of Secret Life of Books. Oliver Twist👇. So many puns to choose from: Twist and Shout, Let's Twist Again...

Oliver Twist for SLoB this week. forgotten that dickens - as well as fagin, dodger et al - gives us the 1st detective double act in blathers & duff a century before starsky & hutch. They even do good cop-bad cop and lay out the rules of procedural: 1) inspect the premises; 2) interview the suspects

A view from the crowd. Sophie gee and I going head to head over Shakespeare vs Austen at Sydney university this morning. The most anticipated bout since Paul vs Tyson. Amazed the streamers weren’t interested actually. No clear victor when we went to the polls, except - of course - literature itself

after a two hour recording session on Oliver Twist with Sophie Gee, nothing says relaxation like a 2025 business planning session. chemical equations in background not ours. fortunately.

Olympians, wizards, AI workshops and famous faces: The Alumni Festival returns to Sydney The University of Sydney opens to the public for a free, family-friendly day of fun on Saturday 30 November. Find out more and register.

limbering up for going head to head over Shakespeare vs Austen with Sophie Gee at University of Sydney Alumni Festival this Saturday. The hottest match since Paul vs Tyson. I'm in Shakespeare's camp. suggestions for knock out blows welcome!

Yay!

Thank you Leila - that is very kind of you!

The world's most famous classicist on the world's most famous classic: Mary Beard and The Odyssey Podcast Episode · Secret Life of Books · 11/26/2024 · 58m

Latest Secret Life of Books episode available now. Mary Beard joins Sophie Gee and myself to discuss the Odyssey - and how it is basically an investigation of toxic masculinity a few millennia before Zeus put Andrew Tate into the world. As always with Mary - lots of laughs and revelations.

Humbug: vandal smashes gravestone of Ebenezer Scrooge Damage to fictional gravesite, seen in 1984 adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, discovered on Sunday

it's a philosophical question: can a grave stone be 'vandalised' if there is no grave beneath it? Either way, neither Scrooge nor his descendants will be paying for it. Sounds like humbug to me

Go Greek with Mary Beard as she joins SLoB for a special episode on The Odyssey.

finishing edit of Secret Life of Books episode on The Odyssey for tomorrow. Guest star: Mary Beard. Recorded last week and Mary spent an hour talking with us. There's so much going on Homer, but the acute investigation of toxic masculinity millennia before it was even a phrase took me by surprise.

Bonus Live Ep: hosts' secrets revealed and the classics stripped bare! - Secret Life of Books Co-hosts Sophie and Jonty bare all in a bonus SLoB live ep! After months of rummaging through the dirty laundry of the great writers, it is only fair that we turn a critical eye back upon ourselves - ...

edited and published Thursday night's Secret Life of Books launch event. Good fun and the closest to a mission statement we'll probably ever do secretlifeofbooks.buzzsprout.com/2382913/epis...

Sophie Gee and I had a ball launching the Secret Life of Books podcast at Gleebooks in Sydney last night. I even wore my fancy suit. Ann Mossop did a beautiful introduction. The Gleebooks team were amazing. Ended the evening in a karaoke booth.

2024 Winners Australian poems by Australian poets are at the heart of Red Room Poetry an organisation devoted to creating, publishing and promoting the reading and writing of great new work.

One of the highlights of working for Red Room Poetry is the Poem Forest Awards. Today is that day. The finalist poems are here loom.ly/wkYRwdE
Please read some - the talent of these young poets, the empathy they feel towards nature and the world, is truly inspiring.

meantime, reading Oliver Twist for next record. I knew Charles Dickens had to work in a blacking factory when he was twelve. Didn't realise the older boy who looked out for him there was actually called Fagin. In Oliver Twist, he turned childhood trauma into great art

Secret Life of Books launching publicly tonight at Gleebooks. Guest list at 107. Recording a special episode on the Secret Life of The Secret Life of Books. All will be revealed...

Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen does gothic horror with insta-ready clothes and interiors - Secret Life of Books Henry Tilney: is he yet another of Jane Austen’s Bad Men, or the stealth MVP with his interest in dress fabrics and interior decorating? Northanger Abbey is Austen’s funniest, most unabashedly joyful ...

and this week's episode now available - on all good podcast providers. Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey - gothic thrills, romantic spills, and household bills (requiring a strategic marriage).
www.buzzsprout.com/2382913/epis...

The Secret Life of Books – Gleebooks.com.au

Hello Bluesky! I'm jumping on the bandwagon - in the search of a better world! Two more sleeps until the official launch of the Secret Life of Books podcast at Gleebooks in Sydney.
spaces still available
gleebooks.com.au/event/the-se...