My Wife Likes Books
My Wife Likes Books is a show for book lovers who enjoy reading along with other people. Sarah Berry, Sallie Chedburn and Sophie Bishop discuss one chapter of a chosen novel every fortnight, starting with A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Listeners are encouraged to read the same chapters and join in through the podcast's Instagram and Fable book club. The show is independently supported by listeners, who can donate via Buy Me a Coffee.
Episodes
Why the Format You Choose Changes the Book You Read and A Little Life Section 5: The Happy Years (We Need to Talk About That Ending)
If you've ever DNF'd a book on Kindle that you loved in print, or fallen in love with a story only because of its narrator, this episode is for you.We discuss: whether audiobooks, physical copies, or Kindle actually help you connect with a book; why Babel by RF Kuang might be the worst possible novel to read on an e-reader; tandem reading and Spotify's new page-sync feature; reading speed, narrati
Meet My Wife Likes Books — The Reading Friend Group You've Been Missing
My Wife Likes Books is the podcast for people who love reading but have no one to talk to about it. Three friends with completely opposite taste in books — a read-everything obsessive, a fantasy and literary fiction devotee, and a romantasy lover — meet every fortnight to recommend, argue, and overshare about their reading lives. If you've ever felt like the only reader in your friend group, you'v
Who Are We? Three Friends, Zero Shared Taste in Books
Before we get into the books, meet the hosts. Sarah reads everything and has opinions about all of it. Sophie lives for fantasy and literary fiction and has a complicated relationship with romance. Sallie is a burnt-out romantasy reader who reads selectively but feels deeply. Together we somehow make it work — mostly by disagreeing. My Wife Likes Books is for readers who want a friend group, not a
What Actually Happens on My Wife Likes Books — Hot Takes, Book Fights, and a Readalong That's Already Hurting Us
Every episode of My Wife Likes Books follows the same format — and here's exactly what you're signing up for. We share what we're currently reading, put a book on trial for praise or criticism, dig into a reading-life theme, and work through our communal readalong of Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life together. Fair warning: we already have feelings about it. New episodes drop every other Tuesday st
Bonus episode: Your Summer TBR Sorted: Prize Winners, Page-to-Screen Adaptations & the Books We Can't Stop Talking About
Welcome to the first of our summer bonus episodes! While we're on our break between seasons, we're catching up on everything happening in the book world — the awards drama, the TBR-worthy new releases, and the book-to-film adaptations you need on your radar before autumn.What We've Been Reading Sarah's deep in Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore (climate horror meets romance meets thriller — a l
Bonus Episode – What Would Grey's Anatomy Characters Read? Diagnosing Meredith, Christina, Bailey, George & Derek's Bookshelves
Scalpel. Suture. TBR pile. In this bonus episode, Sarah, Sophie and Sallie put down their own books for a minute to diagnose the reading lives of Grey's Anatomy's most iconic characters — because if they're real (and we've decided they are), they definitely read.For each character, the hosts debate three things: their ultimate favourite book, their unexpected guilty-pleasure genre, and the one thi
Reading Goals, A Little Life Chapter One, and Three Books You Need to Read Now
Sarah is reading The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward, Sophie is deep into Golden Son by Pierce Brown, and Sallie is working through Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli.We're also bringing our first offerings to the table — Sarah recommends Piglet by Lottie Hazell, Sallie makes the case for Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers, and Sophie champions Red Rising by Pierce Brown.Then we
Into Thin Air, Fake Dating & The Allure of Reading in a Fancy Hotel
This week we're deep in Chapter Two of A Little Life — and it turns out JB might actually be redeemable? We explore what Hanya Yanagihara is doing with race, privilege, and the way her characters see the world, and ask the big question: is Jude even in this book?In The Offering, Sophie pitches Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (a gripping first-hand account of the 1996 Everest disaster that has absolu
What Makes Young Adult Actually Young Adult, Westerns, and Being A Good Friend
What separates a young adult novel from everything else — is it the age of the protagonist, the writing style, or just the absence of explicit content? This week Sarah, Sophie and Sallie get into it, sharing their favourite YA reads (The Hunger Games, Noughts and Crosses, Maximum Ride) and unpacking why so many books end up in the wrong section of the library entirely.Plus: The Offering. Sallie br
Where the Crawdads Sing, Should You Rate Your Books, and A Little Life: The Postman
This week, In The Offering, Sophie sacrifices Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (no one who grew up in a Marsh has teeth like that), Sarah sacrifices On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, and Sallie venerates What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman — a memoir about travelling the world while your friends have children.We also get into book ratings: whether you need
The Power, The Starless Sea, and A Little Life Section 3 — Plus: Who Made You a Reader?
This week we're bringing three venerations to the table — Sallie makes the case for Naomi Alderman's The Power, Sarah champions The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, and Sophie goes wildcard with the Mr. Men and Little Miss series. We also get into the people who shaped our reading lives: librarians, grandmothers, boyfriends who worked in Waterstones. Then we dig into Section 3 of our A Little Lif
The Debate We've All Been Waiting For - Is ACOTAR a Classic? Plus Haunted Houses and DNF Culture
This week, Sarah brings The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and explains why reading it alone in a hotel room was a terrible decision. Sallie attempts to canonise A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas as a "modern classic", prompting one of our most heated debates yet, while Soph argues for the heartbreak and brilliance of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.We also talk DNF cu
Do Book Prizes Actually Matter? Plus A Little Life Sections 6 & 7: What He Died Believing
If you've ever argued with a friend about whether a book prize actually reflects what real people read — or felt personally attacked when someone sacrifices your favourite Emily Henry — this episode is for you.We discuss: whether the Booker Prize is for readers or for people who want to be seen reading; the International Booker vs the Women's Prize and which one actually has the best track record;
A Little Life Ending Explained + Our Summer Book Swap
Season one ends where it began: with A Little Life. Spoilers ahead — we're finishing our readalong with the big questions. Did Hanya Yanagihara always intend for Jude to die by suicide, or did Willem's death push the story there? Is this book a masterpiece or trauma porn, and does it matter that readers can't agree? We talk favourite and least favourite characters (sorry, Caleb), what Harold and M
Bonus Episode – The Summer Book Swap Verdicts Are In (One Certified Flop)
One more bonus before Season 2 lands — and this time we're grading our own homework. Back before summer, each of us picked a book for the other two: something we were sure they'd love, or at least survive. Today we're finding out which picks were hits, which one was a genuine flop, and whether this experiment has finally turned Sarah into a fantasy reader.What we've been reading: Before the verdic
