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Battle of the Brows

November 11, 2026 · 28 min

Show notes

Can murder mysteries be high art? Exploring vintage snobbery and bookish feuds.

Support the podcast and get extra audio goodies by taking part in the Shedunnit Pledge Drive: shedunnitshow.com/pledgedrive

Many thanks to my guests, Subhadra Das and Tom Spencer. Subhadra's book (Un)Civilised: 10 Lies That Made the West is available wherever you get your books. Tom's detective novel, The Mystery of the Crooked Man, is published by Penguin Random House and available from all good booksellers.

Books and sources mentioned in this episode:
— The Common Reader: Second Series by Virginia Woolf
— The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
— "The Battle of the Brows" episode of Archive on 4
— Middlebrow Literary Cultures edited by Erica Brown and Mary Grover
— The Aesthetics of Middlebrow Fiction by Tom Perrin

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