Bestsellers

This is a very special one off Episode of Bestsellers. Dan Brown joins us to discuss his first new book in around eight years: The Secret of Secrets. The Da Vinci Code guy has sold over 250 million books..! And now his latest explores the human conscience and whether there's more going on with our brains than we know about. Dan's very candid here about the heat his books get; why mind alte...

Mike Craven is celebrating his tenth anniversary in crime fiction. The Final Vow is an absolute humdinger of a book with which to celebrate. His long standing sleuth Washington Poe is back with Tilly Bradshaw as a random sniper's on the loose across the UK. It's a pulse raising heart stopper of a thriller and in this interview we discuss Mike's extensive research for each novel; why women' s pubes...

We're honoured to have one of Britain's finest writers join us on Bestsellers this week: Irvine Welsh. The man who brought us Trainspotting three decades ago is back with a brand new novel which follows on immediately after Trainspotting and Renton legging it with the cash. They're all here: Renton, Spud, Begbie, Sick Boy...Trying to turn into Men in Love. Enjoy! We kindly thank Irvine...

Phil spent last weekend in Harrogate at the Old Swan hotel for the world famous Theakstons Crime Writers Festival. The Old Swan is where Agatha Christie emerged, after going missing in 1926, so what better place to stage a Crime Writing festival. This is a shorter than usual ep just to give you a flavour of how well the writers get on with each other and the lovely atmosphere in The Drinking Detec...

You know when a book comes along and just grabs you so you don't want to put it down? One Yellow Eye is one of those books. It's a thriller, a love story, it's also really witty oh and almost forgot, it does feature a zombie at its pulsing (just about) heart too. If you're concerned zombies are not for you (unless you're Natalie who wrote her uni dissertation about zombie movie...

Associate Professor of English, Alison Espach joins Phil and Natalie this week, to discuss her break out third novel, The Wedding People. This went straight into the New York Times Top Ten and has been picked up by Tristar to become a movie. It walks a tightrope of heart wrenching and seriously funny. Alison talks about posh hotels, weddings and her time working the photo both at them, plus her ro...

Looking for your next read to take on holiday, or the commute, or to read before bed? Then Nat and Phil have got you covered. Here they talk you through 10 new books they are either currently reading, or want to read - that's 5 choices from Nat, and 5 from Phil. There's a range of genres from mystery to memoir, love story to thriller, and hopefully at least one of these will be the next bo...

On this episode we're talking the joy of thrillers as Iris Mwanza opens up about what inspired her debut page-turner, The Lion's Den. From growing up in a household where people would drop off boxes of books they couldn't take abroad, to channeling the themes of her day job at the Gates Foundation into her fiction work, Iris shares the challenges and rewards with getting a novel out of...

OK, so we love a book where music plays a key role but it's so hard to do that well, and make you truly believe in a made-up musician. Thankfully, Holly Brickley has played it brilliantly with Deep Cuts, about a music obsessive and a musician who meet at college and deeply impact each other's lives. Hopefully you trust our instincts, but just in case, actors Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler...

The Master Crime Writer and Phil's all time favourite writer, Michael Connelly, returns to Bestsellers to talk about his 40th novel. NightShade features a brand new character, Detective Stilwell, whom Michael loves so much, he's going to return to in future books. We chat to him about the challenges of creating a brand new series when you're forty books in; where Stilwell fits into the Connelly Un...

Chris Chibnall is responsible for writing some of the biggest moments in British television. From Broadchurch to Dr Who, you'll have seen his work on screen. Now he's turned his attention to novel writing and speaks to Phil and Natalie about his debut, Death at the White Hart. It's a Christie-esque whodunnit with a follow up already in the works and he's adapting his own novel himself for ITV. Her...

The bestselling author of Elizabeth is Missing is back with a brand new chilling thriller called Sweat. Set around gyms and exercise, the book features a woman who gets the opportunity to exact revenge on a controlling ex-boyfriend. But will she get away with it and at what cost..? It's a deeply personal book for Emma. She talks openly about obsessive fasting and over exercising after pregnanc...

This is the book for you if you've ever wanted to know what it's *really* like to do a job that is very different to yours. Charlie Colenutt has interviewed and collated the work stories of 68 employees, from a range of backgrounds, at varying stages in their careers, who all share the truthfulness of their working lives. There's joy and stress and sadness and life-changing moments to...

This book has so much to offer. It delves into cultures of silence within families, how that affects relationships between mothers and daughters, and draws on Tara's exoticism, as she describes it, being a child of divorce growing up in Kolkata in the 1980s. And we haven't even mentioned the descriptions of food yet, which are many, all deserving of their place here and might make you hungry. A mo...

Julia Raeside is no stranger to writing or comedy, having written for a number of UK broadsheet newspapers. But this is her debut novel which she's set in the world of stand-up comedy. It explores the sometimes toxic nature of male comedians using coercive controlling behaviour with women and is adroitly observed. Julia tells Phil and Natalie why she thinks Comedy needs it's own HR department; she...

This is fiction, pure fiction, but Asia Mackay has a particular skill for making this tale about a married couple who happen to be serial killers, relatable. There's so much humour in her writing, and it feels incredibly cinematic which is why it's being adapted for the screen already. Asia has also started a parallel career as a screenwriter too, which we get into in this episode as well,...

Bestsellers is back for Season 8. Phil & Natalie have sweat blood and tears to bring some of the bestselling writers in the world to your ears for this season. And we start with the master of the courtroom thriller, making a welcome return to Bestsellers: Scott Turow. Scott created Rusty Sabich forty years ago for Presumed Innocent. Now he's back in the final of the Presumed triumvirate, title...

Our final episode of Season 7 is a cookbook special. But TENDERHEART is so much more than just a cook book. It's Hetty Lui McKinnon's way of processing the loss of her father aged just 15. He was the fruit n veg man, the father who left crates of exciting fresh produce in the hallway for his children to investigate. And now a parent herself to teenage boys, Hetty uses her brand new vegetarian and...

This week's episode is the multi best selling Irish writer, John Boyne. You will almost certainly have read The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas or The Heart's Invisible Furies and the latest venture for John is a quarter of books which he's been releasing every six months. Next year, he'll release them in one compendium called The Elements. But hot on the heels of Water and Earth, comes Fire: a disturb...

Here are Phil and Natalie's Books of the Year for 2024. Five picks each. You'll find all of them with links to buy each book on our website Thanks so much for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe to our podcast and don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list on our website, to hear about Season 8 exclusively...! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode has it all - writing yourself into fiction, being inspired by classic literature, the joy and benefits of being a bit spiky, oh, and there is a fair amount of swearing in this. As an added bonus - depending on your point of view - Nat and Phil also divulge their favourite swear words at the end of the ep... This Motherless Land is Nikki May's story inspired by Jane Austen's Mansfield...

This episode is devoted to Nat and Phil's recommendations of additional books they've been loving, or that are at the top of their to-be-read pile! Choices include a love story, a thriller or two, a decent pick of celebrity memoirs (with valid reasons given!), a cookbook with soul, and a book for adults that happens to be written as if it's a kids picture book. Hope you find something in here to t...

There's a lot of juiciness to this episode - from how books are marketed, to the amount of research needed for historical fiction, and letting creativity flow where it needs to, which might just lead an author to the stage, or the QE2... Kate Mosse has achieved so much already and we loved being steeped in the history of her Joubert family as their story concludes in The Map of Bones - but - as ev...

Phil & Natalie were delighted to return to Chiltern Kills this year. The crime festival which raises funds for the homeless is in its second year, organised by writers Tony Kent and Paul Waters. Its a beautiful day out where crime fiction fans get to genuinely mingle with their print heroes. Some things you need to know before listening: *At the beginning every time we tried to introduce a gue...

Phil and Natalie are delighted to welcome Sir Ian Rankin to BestSellers in the week where his new Rebus - the 25th Rebus thriller - goes straight in at No.1 in the Sunday Times Top Ten Hardback Fiction chart. In this ep, Ian talks about how hard this book was to write; why he's a frustrated Rock Star and why he's attracted to the darker side of the human condition. You'll also find the books he re...