Welcome, everyone, to Books and Beverages! This week we are discussing British literature
We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we support all types of libraries. This is our book group podcast, where we discuss different genres of books each week, while we all sit in our comfy chairs and drink our beverages. And you are, of course, an important part of this book group. So if you do not already have a nice beverage please go get one, so you can join the experience.
There are no “right” or “wrong” books to read and chat about for our book group – we are just here to explore all kinds of books. We love books, and want to talk about them – and we want you to share what you are reading. All of us will take away at least a title or two that we want to read at the end of our time together!
Who is joining our reading group this week? Our guest host is Susan Schleper, from Centra Care Health hospital library in St. Cloud. (You can find Susan on other podcast episode, including a great discussion of Open Access and the institutional repository she is building!)
Beverages
We have guests, we have our genre. We just need our beverages. Fortunately, we all came prepared with something to sip while we talk about our books. Each week we like to connect the theme of our books with our beverages. Each beverage will have a recipe or a link on our episode page, so you can try them yourself! Obviously, feel free to sip along with us with any beverage that is right for you. Just join us in celebrating books, and discussing books!
Tea! “The traditional way of making tea is:
- Boil some fresh cold water. (We use an electric kettle.)
- Put some hot water into the teapot to make it warm
- Pour the water away
- Put one teaspoon of tea-leaves per person, and one extra tea-spoon, into the pot
- Pour boiling water onto the tea
- Leave for a few minutes
- Serve”
Gin & Tonic a classic British drink
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz. Gin
- Fill with Tonic Water
Instructions
- Combine in a Highball or Bucket glass with ice
- Drop in a lime squeeze – this is mandatory
a gin-based potation made in England from dry gin, liqueur, fruit juices, and spices. Pimm’s Cup is still the traditional drink of Wimbledon, with visitors to the matches consuming some 40,000 pints a year.
Ingredients
- 1/2-inch thick English cucumber wheel
- 1/2-inch thick lemon wheel
- 2 ounces Pimm’s No. 1
- 4 ounces 7UP, lemon-lime soda, or ginger ale
- lemon twist
Gently muddle the cucumber and lemon slices in a chilled highball glass. Pour in the Pimm’s and 7UP, lemon-lime soda, or ginger ale, and stir to combine. Add ice to fill the glass and garnish with the lemon twist.
Genre Suggestions
Wikipedia has some ideas on what defines British Lit: “British literature is literature in the English language from the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, and Channel Islands. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature is included, and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature, where literature in these languages relate to the early development of the English language and literature. There is also some brief discussion of major figures who wrote in Scots, but the main discussion is in the various Scottish literature articles.
The article Literature in the other languages of Britain focusses on the literatures written in the other languages that are, and have been, used in Britain.
Irish writers have played an important part in the development of literature in England and Scotland, but though the whole of Ireland was politically part of the United Kingdom between January 1801 and December 1922, it can be controversial to describe Irish literature as British. For some this includes works by authors from Northern Ireland.”
Some reading suggestions:
- Goodreads list of Best British and Irish literature (in our podcast we are only looking at British literature, so we can devote attention to each in separate episodes)
- Top 75 British Literature Titles
- The 100 greatest novels of all time: The list (from The Guardian; not all are British, but many are)
- 12 Essential English Novels Everyone Should Read
- The 25 Greatest British Novels from the BBC
- 10 Teaching Literature Ideas from the New York Times (not all on British Literature; but some good suggestions on both teaching and reading across literature)
- Teaching British Literature – Help for Your Homeschool (or Group!)
EdX classes (MOOCs – free!)
- Shakespeare on the Page and in Performance: Young Love
- Hamlet’s Ghost
- “A Christmas Carol” by Dickens: BerkeleyX Book Club
- “A Study in Scarlet” by Doyle: BerkeleyX Book Club
- “Jane Eyre” by Bronte: BerkeleyX Book Club
- “Pride and Prejudice” by Austen: BerkeleyX Book Club
- “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Wilde: BerkeleyX Book Club
Books We Read:
- The Bertie Wooster series, by P.G. Woodhouse
- I captured the Castle
- Jane Austen
- Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!, by Seth Grahame-Smith
- Mr. Darcy’s Diary, by Amanda Grange
- Mycroft Holmes, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- How to be Human
- H is for Hawk
- Me Before You
- All Creatures Great And Small
- Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d (Flavia de Luce, #8) Alan Bradley,
- Moonbreaker (Secret Histories, #11)Forces from Beyond (Ghost Finders, #6) Tales from the Nightside Simon R. Green,
- Eric (Discworld, #9;) Terry Pratchett,
- The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
- Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell, #13) Laurie R. King,
- The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2) Douglas Adams,
- Steampunk (one good example: Gail Carriger)
- The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
- Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
- The Once and Future King T. H. White