Best Rowan and Joy Podcasts (2025)

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Henry James 2: Colm Tóibín on Henry James 40:42

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15h ago40:42

40:42

One of the world's favorite novelists, on his own favorite novelist. Colm Toibin has written many beloved novels, for which he has won many prestigious prizes. The novels include Brooklyn and Long Island; The Magician and The Master. This last is Colm's fictional recreation of Henry James' extraordinary career-save in which he bounced back from the…

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Henry James 1: The Portrait of a Lady 1:27:45

8d ago1:27:45

1:27:45

Many readers consider The Portrait of a Lady to be the greatest novel in English. But for some reason, James' fellow novelists loved to dump on him. Nabokov called him a "pale porpoise," and said his books were strictly for "non-smokers." Virginia Woolf, who knew him as a family friend, wrote, "we have his works here, and I read them, and can’t fin…

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Frazey Ford Revisits the Subtle Grooves of 'Indian Ocean', ep. 331 51:19

13d ago51:19

51:19

Frazey Ford has always loved soul music. She fell in love with Otis Redding at age 11 and discovered people like Ann Peebles along the way, but it was Al Green that really knocked her out. She loved the layers, the expression, and especially his voice. She completely dove in and even started an Al Green cover band. Although she had been perfecting …

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Greece Lightnin': My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell 1:02:47

15d ago1:02:47

1:02:47

SLoB is turning 1! To celebrate, Sophie and Jonty re-read one of their all time favorites, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. My Family and Other Animals (1956) is the beloved, hilarious, brilliant chronicle of a childhood idyll — which is also a series of comic disasters — set on the Ionian Greek Island of Corfu. The memoir is the firs…

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American Horror 3: Salem's Lot by Stephen King 1:10:00

22d ago1:10:00

1:10:00

Salem’s Lot (1975) is Stephen King’s second published novel, and many would say it's his best. It tells the story of a plague of vampires running amok in a blue-collar town in New England and the band of heroes who come together to fight them. We’re aware that many listeners may not have read a Stephen King novel, although they will probably have s…

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The Barr Brothers Rally Around Mysticism, ep. 330 1:01:25

27d ago1:01:25

1:01:25

In the eight years since The Barr Brothers last released an album, Andrew has been drumming with people like Feist, Mumford & Sons, and Broken Social Scene while Brad released a solo record and underwent incredible personal change. Brad made the huge decision to get sober, which he talks about candidly in our Basic Folk interview. Anything you read…

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American Horror 2: Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin 51:57

29d ago51:57

51:57

Chocolate Mouse, anyone? Rosemary’s Baby was a smash hit on release - the best selling horror novel of the 1960s, eventually selling over 4 million copies. The year after publication it was adapted into one of the greatest films of the decade - directed by Roman Polanski with Mia Farrow as the eponymous heroine. At first glance, it seems that Ira L…

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American Horror: The Haunting of Hill House 1:10:38

1M ago1:10:38

1:10:38

Who's afraid of American horror? Sophie and Jonty, for starters. To celebrate halloween, SLOB is taking a deep dive into three classics of the American Horror genre. We've chosen novels published after 1945, and we're asking how the war - and its many aftershocks and resonances in American domestic and political life - transformed horror as a liter…

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David Wilcox Can Heal Your Heart in Two Minutes, ep. 329 1:11:03

1M ago1:11:03

1:11:03

Asheville-based songwriter David Wilcox has been through some s-h-i-t. A difficult childhood in Northeast Ohio sent him seeking answers – mostly on his bicycle – in an attempt to get away. He has spent his lifetime leaning into his problems and digging into their roots at the source: his own heart. He decided to see what lessons his heart had been …

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Montaigne pt2: A Montaigne out of a mole hill (with Rowan Tomlinson) 48:32

1M ago48:32

48:32

Jonty and Sophie were separated by an ocean while Sophie and her family went back to New York and Jonty stayed in Sydney - so they made lemonade out of life's lemons, and created two miniature episodes about the great 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne isn't just any old essayist — he's the man who invented the form, with t…

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Montaigne pt1: Climb Every Montaigne (with Stephen Greenblatt) 35:28

1M ago35:28

35:28

Sophie talks to one of the world's leading literary scholars, who co-founded a whole branch of literary studies known as "The New Historicism," before reinventing Shakespeare for new generations of readers, and then turning the Roman poet Lucretius into an (almost) household name. Stephen Greenblatt is professor of English at Harvard University, he…

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SLoB's Four (literary) weddings and a funeral 59:38

2M ago59:38

59:38

The label says what's in the tin: Secret Life of Books dives deep into weddings and funerals in literature, asking why they become iconic moments to hang a story on. Family strife, betrayal, love, passion, disappointment and hope are all bound up in these major life events where we see characters' true colors and desires writ large. -- To join the …

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Kathleen Edwards: Making up for 30 Years of No Tears, ep. 328 1:07:00

2M ago1:07:00

1:07:00

Kathleen Edwards claims that she's now a pretty frequent crier after not crying for the first 30 years of her life. One reason for this change is the connectedness she has been feeling since leaving music and starting her coffee shop, Quitters. In our Basic Folk conversation, Edwards tears up talking about the cover of her new album 'Billionaire,' …

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Wilkie Collins 2: The Moonstone 1:11:54

2M ago1:11:54

1:11:54

With The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins published yet another giant sensation, this time pioneering the detective novel and mystery/heist genre. It was published in 1868 and serialised - just as The Woman White was - in Dickens’ All the Year Round, making it one of the most popular books of Victorian Britain. Jonty and Sophie will show how The Moonstone…

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BONUS: Jennifer Egan on the Woman in White 37:37

2M ago37:37

37:37

As part of our ongoing “That’s Classic!” series, we're joined by the wonderful Jennifer Egan to chat about the sensational thriller The Woman in White. Jennifer is one of the most loved, admired and critically acclaimed writers in America, with fans all over the world. Jennifer is a Pulitzer Prize winner and was President of the vitally important P…

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Wilkie Collins 1: The Woman in White 1:19:36

2M ago1:19:36

1:19:36

The Woman in White was a sensation when it was serialised in Charles Dickens’ magazine All The Year Round in 1859 and 1860. It begins with an uncanny late-night meeting on the road to London between a young man and a woman dressed entirely in white. It ends with a sensational cat and mouse game between a villain and his pursuers. One of the unsung …

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SLOB Reads: The Sonnet with Paul Muldoon 38:24

2M ago38:24

38:24

For several weeks we've been recording a subscribers-only mini series on the history of the sonnet in English. Sonnets are crowd-pleasers - short, sometimes sweet, and they always deliver a lot of bang for the reading buck. Today, one of the world's great living poets, Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize winner and former poetry editor of the New Yorker, …

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Peter Rowan: The Bluegrass Buddha's Tex-Mex Roots, ep. 327 1:08:54

2M ago1:08:54

1:08:54

Legendary Massachusetts-born, California-based musician Peter Rowan is best known for his bluegrass roots. A practicing Buddhist, he did time in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys as well as in the short-lived and epically important Old & In the Way with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman. However, his latest album 'Tales of the Free Mexican Airforce' celeb…

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The Secret Life of Trains: how rail travel changed fiction - for ever 1:04:19

2M ago1:04:19

1:04:19

It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express. So Agatha Christie began her sleeper [car] hit, Murder on the Orient Express (1934). All aboard! In the latest of SLoB's much-loved special episodes on surprising, fun, and always deeply re…

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BONUS: Writing Virginia Woolf's life (with Hermione Lee) 43:40

2M ago43:40

43:40

In this final episode in SLoB's series on Virginia Woolf, Jonty talks to literary biographer Hermione Lee whose Virginia Woolf (1996) is perhaps the most respected account of her life and art in a world not short on them. Hermione talks about the challenges in writing about somebody who had such firm views on what a biography should and shouldn't b…

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Virginia Woolf 5: The Waves 57:11

3M ago57:11

57:11

We thought we’d be concluding our Virginia Woolf deep-dive with "A Room of One’s Own," but we’ve enjoyed this series so much we decided to extend. Today we’re looking at the book which many Woolf obsessives consider her masterpiece. Woolf published The Waves in 1931, just two years after her string of masterpieces, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, …

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Rissi Palmer & Miko Marks: "Buckle Bunny," No Cringe, and My Black Country, ep. 326 1:07:02

3M ago1:07:02

1:07:02

This time on Basic Folk, we are checking in with country singer-songwriter and Color Me Country radio host Rissi Palmer and Americana country artist Miko Marks. The two close friends both came up as Black women in country music in the early part of the 21st century where they experienced gatekeepers and discrimination in the industry, but undeniabl…

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Virginia Woolf 4: A Room Of One's Own 1:09:41

3M ago1:09:41

1:09:41

Thank God, my long toil at the women’s lecture is this moment ended. I am back from speaking at Girton, in floods of rain. Starved but valiant young women – that’s my impression. That’s what Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary after delivering the lectures that became “A Room of One’s Own,” arguably the most important feminist manifesto of the twenti…

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Vibe Coaches: Maya de Vitry, Ethan Jodziewicz, Joel Timmons, & Shelby Means, ep. 325 1:12:09

3M ago1:12:09

1:12:09

Maya de Vitry, Ethan Jodziewicz, Joel Timmons, and Shelby Means are on Basic Folk today talking about their new collaborations. Maya produced both Shelby and Joel's debut solo albums this year; Joel and Ethan play in Maya's band; and the two couples (Joel & Shelby are married and Ethan & Maya are partners) are all very close friends. They met in Na…

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Virginia Woolf 3: Orlando 1:20:20

3M ago1:20:20

1:20:20

Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, a gender-defying historical romance, in 1927, when her intimate friend and lover Vita Sackville-West left London to join her diplomat husband Harold Nicholson in Tehran. Orlando is a love-story set across 300 years of English history, starting in the Elizabethan court and finishing in 1920s England. It features an irre…

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BONUS: Reading Mrs Dalloway (with Alexandra Schwartz) 29:39

3M ago29:39

29:39

"Throw that party. Go for it. It's worth it." In today’s Mrs. Dalloway special episode, Sophie talks to Alex Schwartz, writer, critic and co-host of the New Yorker Magazine’s Critics at Large pod. On “Critics at Large’ she discusses the most urgent cultural matters, ranging from Sesame Street to the Pope to Meaghan and Harry to Ancient Rome. Which …

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Paul Brady on Tina Turner, Irish Music and Not Being Too Famous, ep. 324 54:33

3M ago54:33

54:33

Bob Dylan once called Paul Brady a "secret hero" and meant it as a compliment. The Irish songwriting legend has not been bothered by the fact that his profile has not risen as high as some of his peers. Starting off in the world of traditional Irish music, Brady spent time in the hugely influential Irish group Planxty until they disbanded in 1975. …

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Virginia Woolf 2: To The Lighthouse 1:09:44

3M ago1:09:44

1:09:44

50 is the new 25! “To the Lighthouse” is Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece about summer holidays and the passage of time. It’s perhaps the greatest novel ever written about middle-age, published when Viriginia Woolf herself was middle aged, and recorded by Sophie and Jonty at the height of their middle aged powers. The novel was published in 1927, after…

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BONUS: Virginia Woolf, the not-so-Common Reader (with Alexandra Harris) 34:55

3M ago34:55

34:55

‘Think of a book as a very dangerous and exciting game, which it takes two to play at.’ For Virginia Woolf, reading wasn’t a passive act. It requires guts and ingenuity. At times one is locked in combat with a book, at others one is the ‘accomplice’ of a writer, like an accomplice to crime, aiding an act of daring imagination. Few people read as cl…

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Everyone Has a Friend in Joe K. Walsh, ep. 323 49:59

3M ago49:59

49:59

Originally from northern Minnesota, Joe K. Walsh grew up in Duluth and became enthralled with the mandolin (his primary focus, currently) after hearing the first David Grisman Quintet record. His dad got the young Joe his own mando. He ended up getting very serious about the instrument and found himself studying at Berklee College of Music in Bosto…

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Virginia Woolf 1: Mrs Dalloway 1:13:56

4M ago1:13:56

1:13:56

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not the Secret Life of Books, as we joyfully immerse ourselves in four of Woolf's greatest books to celebrate what is probably the most extraordinary middle-aged flowering of literary talent in history. Virginia Woolf was 43 when she published Mrs. Dalloway, 100 years ago in 1925. She went on to publish To the Lighth…

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Everyone Belongs at the Olive Klug show, ep. 322 52:36

4M ago52:36

52:36

Olive Klug and I (Cindy) recorded this interview in my closet while they were in Portland, Maine to play a show. They stayed along with their band Cori, Haley, and Payton and it was a real pleasure to be around them for a few days. You can tell that Olive is at their best around their band and it is a true collaboration on stage. Shoutout to the wh…

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Smells Like Teen Spirit: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 1:07:30

4M ago1:07:30

1:07:30

Martin Amis’ Money, Thomas Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero… These books are often cited as defining works of the 1980s - serious works of literature that captured the spirit of the age. They are all great books, but spare a thought too for Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾. Like The Diary…

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Gina Chavez: From Choir Kid to Latin Grammy Nominee, ep. 321 1:05:37

4M ago1:05:37

1:05:37

New bestie Gina Chavez speaks about her journey in music, her deep love for connecting with people, and the influence of her mixed cultural background on Basic Folk. Her parents are of Mexican and Swiss-German descent. Her father, although second generation Mexican-American, was not raised with Spanish language or any Mexican culture. Gina discusse…

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The Secret River with Kate Grenville 54:08

4M ago54:08

54:08

This special episode on a great modern classic was recorded live at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2025. Very few novels can genuinely claim to have changed a nation’s consciousness. The Secret River, written by Kate Grenville and published in 2005, is one of those books. It put a spotlight on a side of white settler experience that Australians ha…

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Tony Kamel Believes in Life and You Should Too, ep. 320 41:34

4M ago41:34

41:34

You may recognize the voice, face, and vibe of wonderful human being Tony Kamel from his acclaimed bluegrass group, Wood & Wire. But Tony is on Basic Folk today to talk about his wonderful solo albums, including his latest, 'We're All Gonna Live.' The album, which just came out, is a realist-optimist's guide to navigating a complex and often heartb…

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Keeping Up Appearances with the Pooters: The Diary of A Nobody 1:15:50

4M ago1:15:50

1:15:50

This episode is a cheat. It's not a real published personal diary, but a satire on published diaries. It’s a fiction, but it’s a fiction that tells us a lot about fact. Published 1892, The Diary of a Nobody is about London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie, his son William Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances. Most of all, it's about …

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Kora Feder is the Future of Political Folk Songwriting, but also Has Too Many Craft Projects, ep. 319 41:53

4M ago41:53

41:53

On this episode of Basic Folk, Kora Feder talks about her new album, 'Some Kind of Truth,' as well as reflecting on the incredible changes and growth she's experienced since we last spoke in February 2020. One of the impacts of the pandemic on her music career was the necessity of exploring other artistic ventures like crafting hats and lino-cuttin…

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The Secret Life of Summer Holidays: sunburns, family arguments and holiday cottages in classic literature 49:49

4M ago49:49

49:49

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Not if it was the summer holiday that Jonty's family went on to Menorca when a stomach bug ripped through their local village. Or the ill-fated beachside retreat amid a lacerating tropical storm that Sophie took with her mother and sister to mourn her father's death. Classic literature stages endless scenes o…

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BONUS: Move Over Bridgerton: James Boswell's Big Romance 24:21

5M ago24:21

24:21

A bonus episode to share the extraordinary detail and richness of the real-time, live-streamed account James Boswell gives us of his first love affair in 1760s London. This may be the closest we can ever come to understanding what passion was like in an age of sexual libertinism and STDs before antibiotics. In our last episode, we talked about Bosw…

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Tami Neilson: On Taking Wynonna's Call, Her Scary Near-Death Experience, and Willie Nelson, ep. 318 1:13:32

5M ago1:13:32

1:13:32

In recent years, Tami Neilson has been learning to carry both great joy and great sorrow simultaneously. The New Zealand-based, Canada-born powerhouse's new album, 'Neon Cowgirl,' is named after the towering electric figure on a sign that's overlooked Broadway in Nashville, watching over Tami's career since she was 16 years old. The songs were born…

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A Date With Signor Gonorrhea: James Boswell's London Journal 1762 1:20:57

5M ago1:20:57

1:20:57

It’s London, 1763 - we're paying a visit to the most fashionable, literary, sexy, filthy, glamorous capital in the world. The 22 year old James Boswell, born and raised on a large country estate outside Edinburgh, has escaped his ambitious and pushy Presbyterian parents and arrived in London. They want him to follow the family footsteps and become …

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Indigo Girls: Activism Through Fashion and Community Through Food (REISSUE), ep. 317 57:13

5M ago57:13

57:13

(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the past several weeks, Basic Folk has been digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. This is our last Reissue for now, so please enjoy! This episode featuring separate interviews with The Indi…

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Plague, fire and hanky-panky in Swinging 1660s London: Samuel Pepys' Diary 1:19:13

5M ago1:19:13

1:19:13

Welcome to London in the swinging sixties. One man fights off a towering inferno, navigates a zombie apocalypse, and an invading fleet of evil foreigners, while doing an extraordinary amount of shagging along the way. But we’re not talking about Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. This is the Diary of Samuel Pepys, written in the - flip th…

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Joy Oladokun Writes Worship Music for Youth Group Rejects (REISSUE), ep. 316 51:18

5M ago51:18

51:18

(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the past several weeks, Basic Folk has been digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. Enjoy! This episode featuring Lizzie No interviewing Joy Oladokun, was originally posted on February 24, 20…

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Watchhouse in Conversation with Jacob Sharp (Mipso) (Bonus) 45:55

5M ago45:55

45:55

(Editor's Note: Oh, WOW! A bonus, surprise episode with Watchhouse? Yes! And it is a treat. We are pleased to have Jacob Sharp of Mipso as our guest host in conversation with his friends Andrew Marlin and Emily Franz of Watchhouse, talking about their new studio album, 'Rituals.' The record was co-produced with Ryan Gustafson of The Dead Tongues. T…

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Breakfast with Jane Austen 52:19

5M ago52:19

52:19

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day -- especially for Jane Austen. On and off the page, Austen paid a lot of attention to the breakfast table. In real life, Austen woke before her family, played the piano and got the breakfast ready, before retreating to write for the rest of the morning. And in the novels this meal is no less foundatio…

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Chris Thile: Calvin and Hobbes, Classical Music, and Curiosity (REISSUE), ep. 315 1:21:20

5M ago1:21:20

1:21:20

(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the next several weeks, Basic Folk is digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. Enjoy! This episode featuring Cindy Howes interviewing Chris Thile was originally posted on September 9, 2021 aft…

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Oscar Wilde 4: Doing rhyme: The Ballad of Reading Gaol 1:27:09

5M ago1:27:09

1:27:09

In this episode - the last in our series on Oscar Wilde - we tell the story of the melodramatic, mediagenic, mad, melancholy end of Oscar Wilde's writing life and glittering career as the cleverest man in Britain, after his string of smash hit plays, culminating in "The Importance of Being Earnest." Almost as the curtain went up on his masterpiece …

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Life and love with MND: Lisa Genova's Every Note Played with Prof Dominic Rowe 40:32

6M ago40:32

40:32

Published in 2018, Lisa Genova’s Every Note Played follows the experiences of renowned concert pianist Richard Evans from the moment he is diagnosed with a form of Motor Neurone Disease, or MND, to his death less than two years later. It is a confronting, blow-by-blow account of the physical deterioration caused by MND, but also a testament to huma…

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