Book review podcasts can be compared to wines. Each has its own individual taste, but they are all essentially wines. Book review podcasts, well, review books, but every such podcast offers a twist on that familiar format. Or, at least, the good ones do.
The show highlights the clandestine motives, undeclared stakes, and scandalous backstories of books that people think they already know.
The secret sauce of the show is its conversations between Sophie Gee (a literary expert) and Jonty Claypole (a media creative), mixing high-quality research with humor. Don't think stuffy and pedantic. Instead, think witty banter, clever insights, and opinions percolating for years.
The podcast covers a wide range of literature, such as analyzing the influences on Jane Austen or the archives of Toni Morrison. Bonus content includes special "crammer" episodes for students and romantic critiques of literary characters. Occasionally, the hosts perform live, in-person shows at bookstores and festivals.
Sophie Gee is an English professor (formerly at Princeton University) and author, known for her work on literary criticism. "Every book tells a story. One it tells, and one it hides," Gee explains.
Jonty Claypole is a former Director of Arts at the BBC and current CEO of Red Room Poetry.
The podcast was a recent winner at The NYC Podcast Awards and was chosen as the Audience Choice Winner. On LinkedIn, the hosts responded with: "The award is because of you, so a huge thank you to everyone who voted for us."
One of my favorite episodes is The Other Bronte Girl: Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall from February 24, 2025. The hosts tell us: "With all the fuss and fanfare around Wuthering Heights, 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, published in 1848. Anne wrote it in a whirlwind after the successes of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, determined to prove herself a Bronte in talent and spirit."
The hosts continue: "And though Anne is now the least celebrated of the Bronte trio, Tenant at the time of its publication it was considered the most shocking in the Bronte collective oeuvre. Anne had fearlessly pulled back the veil on marital infidelity, domestic violence, alcoholism, and the systemic torments of Victorian masculinity and marriage laws."
In the By George (Eliot) She's Done It! The road to Middlemarch episode, the hosts exclaim that: "George Eliot’s Middlemarch is the Mount Everest of Victorian fiction. A book so brilliant and monumental that it’s taken us a year of planning to take it on. But as we close out 2025, we’ve established our Middlemarch base camp and started the climb.
"To put it another way, we’ve recorded an episode in which we treat listeners to the story behind the story of the greatness that is Mary Ann Evans, the woman who became George Eliot. Middlemarch is, in many people’s opinions, the greatest novel in English. To help understand why it’s so amazing, how Eliot learned to write like this, and her life as a reader, writer, daughter and lover (plus, the story behind her pen name), we give you this primer episode."
The podcast also began new subscriber-only episodes every two weeks about Middlemarch itself, going book by book through this magnificent classic. This is how Eliot meant Middlemarch to be read - through eight stages. One for each of the serialized volumes that ran through 1871 and 1872 before the book was published as a whole in 1874.
Secret Life of Books isn't for every reader. Austen, Bronte, George Eliot -- not for everyone. What I enjoy about the show is that you can snack on incisive perceptions, startling conclusions, counterintuitive angles, with a side of attitude.
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