By Anne Levin

When novelist Jodi Picoult sits down for a chat with Princeton University English Professor Sophie Gee at Princeton Public Library on February 13, the focus will be on William Shakespeare rather than Picoult’s own impressive output of some 29 bestselling books.

A graduate of Princeton’s Class of 1987, Picoult will be in town to take part in an episode of Gee’s podcast “The Secret Life of Books,” which Gee will be recording in the library’s Community Room.

The public is invited. While Picoult will not be signing copies of her latest book, By Any Other Name, she and Gee will be available to answer questions at the conclusion of the podcast.

“She is one of our proudest exports,” Gee said of Picoult, who studied writing with former Princeton Professor Mary Morris. “I love Jodi’s writing. She’s a very authentic, talented, passionate writer. Bestseller fiction is sometimes not included in canonical writing. But I think it’s really important to look at bestsellers and what they are saying about the world.”

The podcast episode is titled “When a Woman Holds the Quill.” The Shakespeare angle refers to Picoult’s belief that a woman known as Emilia Lanier, rather than The Bard himself, wrote his plays. While Gee doesn’t necessarily buy that theory, she thinks it is worth discussion.

“Her latest book, which I think is very accomplished, says that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by a little-known Renaissance writer. She was a real person,” said Gee. “The book is about the idea that Shakespeare was a brilliant theatrical impresario, but he was not the creative genius that stands behind that incredible canon of plays.”

Gee has been on the Princeton faculty for two decades. She started “The Secret Life of Books” with her friend Jonty Claypole, the former director of arts at the BBC and a fellow native Australian. Every week, the two take an iconic book and look for “the hidden story behind the story: who made it, their clandestine motives, the undeclared stakes, the scandalous backstory, and above all, the secret, mysterious meanings of books we thought we knew,” according to secretlifeofbooks.org.

“We both absolutely love reading, and books, and, especially, classics,” Gee said. “We both have degrees in English literature. We’ve both spent our professional lives working with classic literature in one way or another. We felt like there was space for them to be taught in a way that was fun and also rigorous, like a conversation among friends. We wanted to get classic literature out of the ivory tower.”

The partners came up with the title for the podcast before they knew exactly what it would be about. But they soon figured it out.

“We suddenly recognized that what we find compelling about the classics is that they have these hidden stories of history — weird stuff that was going on at the time,” Gee said.

The first episode, which was about Shakespeare’s Macbeth, included a discussion of the gunpowder plot in London in 1605, to blow up the king and whole court and completely disrupt English politics.

“That’s the thing about this project that has been so much more interesting than we realized,” said Gee. “All of these big themes and topics which you think of as being lost in the past — it’s amazing how much they are like situations happening right now.”

Gee plans to ask Picoult about her creative process. “I love the knowledge that she has to support the claim,” she said. “I love the research, and I love her understanding of 16th century literature and politics and women. The book is a totally not-put-downable story of a woman living by her talent and her wits.”

The event is on Thursday, February 13 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Registration is requested but not required. Those who register will be admitted first when the doors open at 1 p.m. The line for seating will begin at 12:30 p.m. Remaining seats will be filled at 1:20 p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis. Visit princetonlibrary.org for more information.