Emily Bronte was one of six children brought up on the bleak Yorkshire moors, and was described by her sister Charlotte as “not a person of demonstrative character”. Yet in her late twenties, this solitary and introverted woman wrote one of the strangest and most remarkable novels in the English language; the story of the doomed love of Cathy and Heathcliff resonates down the generations to the present day. How on earth did such a woman write such a book? Was it based on her personal experience, or did it come entirely from her imagination? Why is it so full of violence and misery? How can a child survive in a world of hatred? Was Emily a better writer than her sister? And why did they all die young? Join Rupert and Charlie as they explore the extraordinary story of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and the effect that Heathcliff had on them all.

Emma is one of only six novels that Jane Austen completed, and yet she is among the very greatest of all English writers. How did an obscure spinster living in a modest house in Hampshire come to create these extraordinary books, and what is it that is so special about them? Rupert and Charlie look at arguably the greatest of them all, the story of Emma Woodhouse. Set in the modest provincial town of Highbury, and charting the day to day lives and concerns of ordinary people, she explores the very depths of human nature, and how we relate to each other. But is Emma a sympathetic heroine or a manipulative schemer? Why can’t she see that the man for her isn’t the smooth chancer who dazzles her for a while, but the solid and kind friend who has always had her interests at heart? And why is she so rude to poor old ladies on picnics? Charlie will explain it all.

Rupert and Charlie look at George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. Austere, prescient, terrifying and ultimately profoundly moving, the novel has exercised an extraordinary hold on the western consciousness with its portrayal of a society where the state controls everything, even your mind. Many words and phrases from the book have passed into everyday language, including Big Brother, Room 101, the Thought Police, Doublethink and the Proles, and the adjective Orwellian is regularly used today to describe the encroachment and surveillance of the State. But is there any hope? Can the Party be defeated? What sort of man was George Orwell? And are there any good jokes in the book? Rupert and Charlie answer all of these questions and much more.