Summer books 2025
Books we think you might enjoy on a plane, by the pool or in the park. Andy, Nicky and our old friend Una McCormack discuss the following fantastic beach reads - Birch reads? - and a novel from Backli...
9 Jun 20251h 8min
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend
The wonderful Nina Stibbe, award-winning novelist and diarist, joins us for a discussion of Sue Townsend's classic comic creation. When it was first published in 1982, the confidential journal of Leic...
26 Mai 20251h 13min
The Image of Her by Simone de Beauvoir
To discuss The Image of Her (1966) by Simone de Beauvoir we are joined by writer and translator Lauren Elkin, whose previous books include Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, Scaffolding and Art Monsters: ...
12 Mai 20251h 9min
Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en
Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time, joins John and Andy for a tour of Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, the sixteenth-century fable widely regarded as one of the most impor...
28 Apr 20251h 4min
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
“A masterpiece I don’t fully understand—and don’t need to.” This week’s book is The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, a bold, baffling, and darkly funny novel that has confounded and enchanted readers sin...
7 Apr 20251h 10min
What Remains by Hannah Arendt
Elif Shafak and Lyndsey Stonebridge join John and Andy for a discussion of the life and work of Hannah Arendt, the historian and philosopher whose books include The Human Condition, The Origins of Tot...
25 Mar 20251h 15min
A Compass Error by Sybille Bedford
Sybille Bedford's A Compass Error (1968) is a classic coming-of-age novel, a love story, a family saga and a study in psychological suspense rolled into one. Joining us to discuss it are the novelist ...
11 Mar 20251h 12min
A Life by Elia Kazan
We explore Elia Kazan's memoir A Life (1988) with veteran biographer and critic John Lahr, author of Notes on a Cowardly Lion, Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton and Tennessee Williams: Ma...
25 Feb 20251h 12min
