PODCAST · arts
60 Weeks 60 Books
by Zeba Clarke
In about 60 weeks, I am going to hit 60 years. That’s a big number. It makes you think about what you have done, where you have been, what matters to you. My greatest passion has always been reading, whether that was listening to people read to me, or once I grasped the essentials, reading myself. So this year, I am going to talk about 60 books. I have chosen most of the books already, ten for each decade of my life. Some are classics, some are anything but classic, but I chose them because they shaped me in some way, had some form of lasting impact, and in many cases, are regular re-reads. I hope this will amuse, inspire and entertain you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
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Week 60 The Usefulness of the Useless
This book was inspiring enough to make me try my hand at my first YouTube book review. And rereading it made me angrier than ever about the way our world is going: the materialism, the populism, the trivialisation and banality, the excessive worship of money and hectoring charlatans. I could go…
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Week 59: Aristotle's Way
The penultimate book of this series dates from 2018, but I am still urging it on friends and students for the bridge it provides to timeless ideas. Edith Hall is an eminent academic specialising primarily in Greek theatre, but here explored her devotion to Aristotle despite his less than...
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Week 58: Shahnameh The Book of Kings
This week, a big fat book full of wonderful stories, dragons, magical birds and super-strong heroes with equally powerful horses. One of the books that makes me think that in school, we really ought to be teaching myth and legend from across the world - there would be enough to keep us busy for…
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Week 57: The Faraway Nearby
For this week, I almost chose another book, but then I could not - Solnit's exploration of ice, of Arctic Dreams, the subject of one my own earlier podcasts, of Frankenstein and her account of her stay in the Library of Water on an Icelandic peninsula are so compelling, that I found myself…
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Week 56 Collected Prose, Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop's artistic reputation and legacy seem, rightly, to grow and grow. She won a Pulitzer Prize in the early 1950s, and was a challenging teacher of writing and literature at Harvard and MIT. She died of a brain aneurysm at 68 in 1979, no doubt a product of the booze and fags she…
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Week 55 Othello
Somehow, although the play is called Othello, it often ends up being all about Iago, arguably the most malevolent of all Shakespeare's villains. For a look at the best filmed versions of this terrific play head to ThatReadingWritingThing, where there are links galore. Hosted on Acast. See...
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Week 54 The Great Gatsby
This week, a book that is 99 years old and grows in stature and authority with every passing year, as its satirical depiction of the super-rich and their destructive impulses gathers authority. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 53: Heart of Darkness
Conrad's 1898 novella, based on his own experiences as a riverboat captain on his only voyage to the Congo, is today a contested book. Two particular attacks, by Chinua Achebe and Edward Said, level accusations of racism and imperialism at Conrad himself, invoking his regular use of the N-word…
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Week 52: I am not your Negro
This week marks a year since I began this podcast with one of the most troubling books I have read, a book and documentary that revealed at the end of 2016 just how deep racism runs in the United States. Eight years later, I am even more troubled as we see the rise of divisive, discriminatory...
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Week 51: The Mighty Dead - Why Homer Matters
This week, as I raced to finish Adam Nicolson's book about his deep love of Homer, discovered 20 years ago on a sea voyage, I kept dipping into a recent translation of The Iliad and getting sidetracked. Homer's impact is strong, and here I take a look at how I started loving the Odyssey, but…
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Week 50 Antony & Cleopatra
Passion makes fools of us all, and nowhere does Shakespeare better display this than in Antony & Cleopatra. What I love about this play is the clash between the public and the personal, the political and the private. It's a sharp, bitter, witty play, full of gossip and black humour. Hosted on...
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Week 49 Reading Lolita in Tehran
Azar Nafisi is an impressive woman, and it is interesting to note that the relatively few dismissive critics of this wonderful book were from a masculine perspective. Women reading, thinking and generating their own ideas and perspectives have always been a threat to the established order.…
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Week 48 The Places in Between
Rory Stewart is nine years younger than me, and about ninety-nine times more adventurous. In this week's episode, I am amazed by his courage, foolhardiness, stamina, determination and also fall in love with his dog Babur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episode 47 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoe
Set on a Dutch trading post built on an artificial island off the coast by Nagasaki, David Mitchell's novel explores what brings us together and what separates us in our cultures, morals and choices. On the surface a straightforward chronological narrative of the first years spent in the East by…
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Episode 46: The Winter's Tale
Hamlet or The Winter's Tale. I suppose it depends on mood and emotion. Hamlet has a brilliantly high body count and some of the best repartee ever, it has Horatio and flights of angels, ghosts and of course, the prince of charisma, Hamlet himself. But The Winter's Tale is different. It too deals...
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Week 45 Development As Freedom
This book as been deeply influential and deserves its place as it seeks to encourage us to rethink the nature of economic and social development, putting humans and humanity at the heart of what it means to be a thriving, healthy society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 44 The People's Act of Love
Cannibalism, castration, crime, confusion, what could I have left out of this summary of James Meek's terrific novel? Oh, yes, communism. It truly has it all and is well worth reading. Find out why in this week's pod. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 43 Away
Amy Bloom's second novel is set in 1920s America. The protagonist, Lillian Leyb, sets off from New York, ending up in Alaska, battling her own past as well as a variety of predators. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 42 Fingersmith
Of Sarah Waters's six novels, this is my favourite. An elegant and witty pastiche of Victorian melodrama and mystery, it is full of sinister twists and savage irony. A great read. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 41 This Thing of Darkness
This book was amazing on first read, and it seems even better on this subsequent re-read. Just as in 2005, I was inspired all over again to visit Patagonia - the difference being that now I live in Brazil, this seems a much more plausible possibility. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for…
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Week 40 Mapp & Lucia
Mapp & Lucia brings together two of EF Benson's most tricky customers, Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Mrs Emmeline 'Lucia' Lucas in a series of skirmishes and battles to decide who will control the upper circles of Tilling. First published in 1931, it remains in print - whether in spite of the trivial...
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Week 39 A Midsummer Night's Dream
It's time for another comedy by Shakespeare - we go into the woods with Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena and explore just how it was possible to reclaim A Midsummer Night's Dream from the curse of being a set text. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 38 We Need to Talk about Kevin
Lionel Shriver's pathway to becoming a public controversialist began with this book - and it still resonates today, in a world where school shootings in the US continue and the gun lobby's agenda dominates public discourse. This podcast also features an original song by Sebby Clarke, Susan.…
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Week 37 Welcome to Temptation
Jennifer Crusie is one of the finest romance writers of all. Welcome to Temptation consistently delivers on the Crusieverse key ingredients: snarky heroine, wary hero, cute kid, slightly odd but affectionate hound, small-town antics and surreal friends and neighbours. The recipe varies, but…
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Week 36 The Blank Slate
A look at Marmite academic Steven Pinker's 2002 book, The Blank Slate, challenging our long held beliefs about human nature with an exploration of how biology just might be more influential than anything else in determining how and we humans behave in the ways we do. Hosted on Acast. See...
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Week 35 The Embarrassment of Riches
This week, the podcast takes a more optimistic turn, following in the footsteps of Simon Schama who delivers rich historical explorations on a grand scale. He is a magnetic writer, idiosyncratic and enjoyable as he displays his formidable breadth of knowledge and powers of synthesis in what…
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Week 34 Facing the Extreme
How Tzvetan Todorov's book about the concentration camps helped me come to terms with the full implications of our capacity for evil and find a way forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 33 Hitler's Willing Executioners
Goldhagen's controversial thesis about ordinary Germans and the Holocaust came out 27 years ago. Today, I invited my husband Peter for our look back at the impact of this landmark history book when we first read the book in 1996. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 32 Northern Lights
Northern Lights is a book that I return to regularly. It is an extraordinary adventure in its own right as well as a wondrous portal to worlds that are at once similar and very different to our own. Its heroes and villains are compelling, recognizable and dangerous, it is full of surprises and in...
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Week 31 A Gathering Light
It seems unfair that A Gathering Light, a winner of the Carnegie Award in 2003, is so little known. It is a terrific book, with a great heroine, plausible and considerable conflicts, murder, love and friendships. It captures totally the harshness of life in the early 20th century for farming...
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Week 30 Arcadia
Tom Stoppard's plays do leave some people cold; he has been accused of too much intellect and not enough emotion. But Arcadia is a dazzling play that has a heart, balancing a sense of loss with optimism and a strong sense of possibility about the future. Rereading it, listening to the radio...
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Week 29 Is He Popinjay
Anthony Trollope's narrative voice is particularly wry, sly and amused in this exploration of marriage, legitimacy and money. A cracking tale with a couple of very plausible and unpleasant villains, it stands up to multiple rereads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 28 The Blind Watchmaker
Before Dawkins was a combative and cranky commentator, he was a gifted researcher and academic. The Blind Watchmaker was for me, a game-changing book, and one that is worth re-reading. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 27: The King James Bible
There are those who say that it is one of the most magnificent achievements in the English language, whilst others just feel it is seeing through a glass darkly, but the King James Version of the Bible is still worth revisiting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 26: The Ringed Castle
Dorothy Dunnett was a magnificent writer - and definitely bears re-reading. In this episode, I explore just why the fifth book in the Lymond Chronicles is my favourite. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 25 Strong Poison
Peter Wimsey first appeared in the early 20s, and by the time Strong Poison appeared in 1930, he was a definite success. Although the mystery is fairly straightforward, the roles given in particular to Miss Murchison and Miss Climpson, two middle-aged spinsters who are instrumental in resolving…
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Week 24: Arctic Dreams
As global temperatures climb on land and in the sea, as wildfires rage and both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, I remember an early warning voice, sadly disregarded despite achieving best-seller status in the mid 1980s. Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams is at once a meditation and a call to…
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Week 23 Old Glory
Initially an academic, Jonathan Raban led a fairly unsettled life until his 50s when he moved to Seattle and became father to his only child. He died earlier this year, but his books live on. I am sure that I am not the only reader inspired by his example to look at the world with a clearer…
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Week 22 A Countess Below Stairs
Exploring the books that have shaped and changed me over the past 60 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 21 Middlemarch
Exploring some of the aspects of George Eliot's rich life and why she absolutely outclasses Dickens. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 20: Hamlet
How old should Hamlet be? Why does it matter that he was a student at Wittenberg? And why is he more than a standard revenge hero from a standard revenge tragedy? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 19 Bleak House
Dickens definitely changed my life. First I loathed him, then I loved him, and if it hadn't been for Bleak House, I don't think I would have studied English at university. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 18 Frederica
Georgette Heyer rightly has many fans and continues to sell well. Here I explore why Frederica is my particular favorite, with its world-weary hero and bustling, managing heroine. Heyer began the tradition of the regency romance, and arguably, her books remain the best of the genre. Hosted on...
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Week 17 Scruples and other bonkbusters
This week, we are taking a look at some of the tropes of the mass market bestsellers of the 1970s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 16: Thunder on the Right
Although not her most popular novel, Thunder on the Right was the first book of Mary Stewart's that I read. I have a feeling I acquired the tatty paperback in one of the dodgy second hand bookshops in Brighton's North Laines. Somewhere in a box, it still lurks! Hosted on Acast. See...
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Week 15: The Catcher in the Rye
An exploration of how Holden Caulfield provided solace and hope to a cynical 13 year old. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 14: Piaf
Edith Piaf's signature song is probably Non, je ne regrette rien, namechecked in the Simpsons, the Penthouse and Specsavers ads. Here, I take a look at her life and how the biography I originally trusted turned out to be highly unreliable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 13: Under the Stars of Paris
Why Mills & Boon were and are a possible answer to the angst of the adolescent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 12 Gone with the Wind
At once a terrible and a great book, Margaret Mitchell's bestseller is at once a propulsive, immersive read, and an awkward apologia for the well-deserved death of a toxic society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Week 11 The Young Elizabeth
Jean Plaidy was one of the most popular and prolific of the 20th century's historical novelists. She still delivers a cracking good read! For me, she was a transition writer between children's historical fiction and the bodice rippers that dominated romance writing in the late 1970s and early...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In about 60 weeks, I am going to hit 60 years. That’s a big number. It makes you think about what you have done, where you have been, what matters to you. My greatest passion has always been reading, whether that was listening to people read to me, or once I grasped the essentials, reading myself. So this year, I am going to talk about 60 books. I have chosen most of the books already, ten for each decade of my life. Some are classics, some are anything but classic, but I chose them because they shaped me in some way, had some form of lasting impact, and in many cases, are regular re-reads. I hope this will amuse, inspire and entertain you.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
HOSTED BY
Zeba Clarke
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How many episodes does 60 Weeks 60 Books have?
60 Weeks 60 Books currently has 60 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is 60 Weeks 60 Books about?
In about 60 weeks, I am going to hit 60 years. That’s a big number. It makes you think about what you have done, where you have been, what matters to you. My greatest passion has always been reading, whether that was listening to people read to me, or once I grasped the essentials, reading myself....
How often does 60 Weeks 60 Books release new episodes?
60 Weeks 60 Books has 60 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to 60 Weeks 60 Books?
You can listen to 60 Weeks 60 Books on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts 60 Weeks 60 Books?
60 Weeks 60 Books is created and hosted by Zeba Clarke.
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