The Novel Tea Podcast
Shruti and Neha have been best friends since they met in middle school in India, having moved there from the Pacific Northwest. Reading and talking about books have always been a big part of their relationship, but as they grew older, they realized that most of the books they had been exposed to were prescribed by the Western canon. So they decided to start a podcast dedicated to reading more broadly, more diversely, and more deeply.
Enter: The Novel Tea Podcast, where your favorite English class meets your neighborhood book club. We go beyond the traditional classics to explore books from diverse authors and backgrounds. In each episode, we discuss one book in detail, analyzing themes, characters, plot, and writing styles, as we attempt to determine: will it stand the test of time?
Read more about your hosts here.
What’s Unique About The Novel Tea?
There are so many wonderful book podcasts, newsletters, and social media sites out there, and we’re so grateful to be a part of this space.
But we think that we do something unique at The Novel Tea — we’re a book discussion podcast that balances careful, thoughtful analysis with honest opinions and fun banter. We also group our episodes into seasons, each highlighting a different theme. This allows us to unlock different perspectives and lenses through which to read books, and ways to compare and contrast them.
We’re one of the very few podcasts out there whose primary goal is to diversify what we consider the literary canon: we read books from around the world, books by women, translated fiction, LGBTQ+ authors, writers with disabilities, and so much more. And along the way, we build our own definition of what it means for a book to be a ‘classic.’
What Can I Expect in each Episode?
In each episode, we discuss, react to, and analyze one single book. This allows us to go deep into its plot, characters, themes, and more! While we sometimes switch around the format based on season and book, in every episode (except for season intros, wrap-ups, and bonus content), you can expect the following:
Brief Summary & Character Breakdown: maybe it’s been six years since you read the book and you need a refresher — we’ve got you covered! We always start with a quick spoiler-free summary, and a run down of the main characters in the story.
Themes: for every book, Neha and Shruti each select one theme that stood out to them in the story. While this usually is an actual theme (the kind you learned about in English class), sometimes we select motifs or structural elements that framed our reading.
The Book Discussion: the meat of each episode! This is where we get into spoiler territory, to fully discuss all aspects of the book, as well as helpful historical or author context, allusions to other texts, and general nerdy and gossipy fun.
Filter the Chai: at the end of the episode, we share our overall opinions of the book, and ask ourselves the question: will this book stand the test of time? The way we’ve answered this question has changed over the years, and we often approach it from different angles, which only makes the conversations that much more interesting!
Shelf Discovery: finally, we share a few other books we’d recommend that are similar to, or in some way, in conversation with, the chosen book for that episode.
Where Should I Start?
We have five seasons so far (with season 6 to come in Fall 2025!):
We encourage you to explore each season! If you’d like to hop around, we suggest you peruse our episode archive and listen to the episode for a book you’ve read and loved — or a book you’ve been considering but would like some more context for before you dive in to.
If you’d like some more direction, here are a few of our most popular episodes:
Where Can I Listen?
In short: wherever you want! Most of our listeners find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, but you should also be able to find us on third-party apps as well. If you’re having trouble finding us, email us and we can help you out.
Find links below to recent episodes:
Click here to get links to other platforms.