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Secret Life of Books
Every book has two stories: the one it tells, and the one it hides.
The Secret Life of Books is a fascinating, addictive, often shocking, occasionally hilarious weekly podcast starring Sophie Gee, an English professor at Princeton University, and Jonty Claypole, formerly director of arts at the BBC.
Every week these virtuoso critics and close friends take an iconic book and reveal the hidden story behind the story: who made it, their clandestine motives, the undeclared stakes, the scandalous backstory and above all the secret, mysterious meanings of books we thought we knew.
Just for example: did you know that Macbeth was a direct response to a terrorist plot against King James I—and Shakespeare himself was connected to the plotters? That Charles Dickens almost died in a railway accident in 1865, but climbed out through a window, rescued his mistress, tended to the sick and dying—then went back to retrieve the manuscript for Our Mutual Friend? That Jane Austen observed the parties and balls of Regency England from above: she towered a full eight inches taller than the average woman of her time?
The Secret Life of Books draws on two lifetimes of readerly expertise, but it’s also deeply user-friendly: you’ll feel like a guest at the best dinner party of the year.
These are brilliant people who’ll make you feel brilliant, too.
With the help of some high-profile guests, Sophie and Jonty won’t just transform the classics, they’ll bring to life the great events and movements in world history wars and revolutions, breakthroughs and triumphs and disasters—seen in the new light of great art rediscovered. This is a podcast for readers and book groups, students and teachers of literature, but it’s also for fans of history and biography, and anyone who’s excited by dazzling, deeply knowledgeable minds working hard and having the time of their lives.
Secret Life of Books
Gulliver's Travels Part 2
As we learned in episode one, Gulliver’s Travels is the gloriously unhinged invention of the dirty-minded genius Jonathan Swift, who was also the greatest defender of Ireland under English rule. Swift was a man of contradictions - to put it mildly - a clergyman and patriot who wrote some of the most explicit and shocking poems and essays of all time.
In our second episode in this series Sophie and Jonty explain how Swift’s imaginings in Gulliver reflect the real-life love affairs and unrequited passions he had with two women — both called Esther — who were his life-long companions and rivals. We’ll hear how Jonathan Swift invented one of the most popular women’s names in history, so he wouldn’t get confused about the two women in his life. And you’ll learn why Gulliver’s Travels was way ahead of its time as a satire defending Irish suffering under English rule.
Suggested reading: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. David Wommersley, 2012); Victoria Glendinning, Jonathan Swift: A Portrait (Henry Holt, 1999); John Stubbs, Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel (Penguin, 2016); Daniel Cook and Nicholas Seager, eds., Cambridge Companion to Gulliver’s Travels, (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
