The Book Club

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Lionel Shriver, whose new novel  A Better Life  offers among other things a savage send-up of liberal pieties on immigration. I asked Lionel what she was trying to do with the book (why make the argument, for instance, in a novel rather than an op-ed?), whether New York's immigration law really is as nutty as her story paints it, and how she r...

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the historian Jane Rogoyska, whose new book  Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War  tells the bloody story of the Second World War through the lens of Paris's Hotel Lutetia – following a cast of exiled intellectuals through the febrile 1930s, the increasing horrors of the war and occupation, through to the devastating aftermath as...

My guest this week is Francis Spufford, whose fabulous new novel  Nonesuch  is a fantasy adventure set during the Blitz containing magical Nazis, nerdy TV techs and honest-to-goodness angels. He tells me about fantasy world-building and historical research, the pleasures and pitfalls of writing a female protagonist, why C S Lewis is as influential as Tolkien — and supersizing Dr Man...

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the philosophy professor Hanna Pickard, whose new book is  What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction . She tells me why we need a new approach to ‘the puzzle of addiction’. She says the idea that addicts are helplessly in thrall to the compulsions of a ‘broken brain’ is wrong, that we need...

In this week’s  Book Club  podcast my guest is Eric Schlosser, the investigative journalist whose  Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal  is being reissued as a Penguin Modern Classic 25 years after its first publication. He tells me what’s changed and what hasn’t since he first published this groundbreaking exposé of fast food’s effects on so many aspects of...

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Caroline Moorehead, whose new book A Sicilian Man: Leonardo Sciascia, the Rise of the Mafia and the Struggle for Italy’s Soul tells the remarkable story of one of Italy’s best-known writers – who used the pulp detective novel to shine a light on the social and political rot of his native land. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast...

This week’s Book Club podcast deals with attention: what it is, why it is in crisis, how it came to be the biggest business in the world, and how we can resist the tech juggernaut that is destroying it. I am joined by two co-authors of the new book Attensity!: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement . They tell me why the ‘attention economy’ would be better termed ‘human fracking’, and ho...

My guest in this week’s Book Club is Joanna Kavenna, who talks about her witty, philosophically riddling new novel Seven: Or, How To Play A Game Without Rules . She tells me about taking her bearings from Italo Calvino, making up a board game and then being the world’s worst player at it, how AI challenges our sense of ourselves – and how Morten Harket found his way into her fiction. Become a Spec...

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen, whose new book The Score: How To Stop Playing Someone Else’s Game asks why rules and scores and metrics are so liberating in games, yet so deadening in real life. He tells me about the societal perils of our growing dependence on quantitative information, what Aristotle got right, and what yo-yos can tell us abou...

Sam Leith is joined by Philip Hensher to pick over their books of the year. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Spectator ’s associate editor Toby Young sits down with master storyteller Bernard Cornwell, author of more than 50 international bestselling novels, including  The Last Kingdom  and much-loved  Sharpe  series. They delve into Cornwell’s life and career, discuss the real history behind his riveting tales of war and heroism and explore the enduring appeal of historical ficti...

My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Jonathan C. Slaght, whose new book is Tigers Between Empires: The Journey to Save the Siberian Tiger from Extinction. He tells me about these remarkable animals, the remarkable people who studied them, and how their fates have been entwined with the shifting politics of post-Soviet Russia. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast witho...

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is James Geary, talking about the new edition of his classic The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism . He tells me about what separates an aphorism from a proverb, a maxim or a quip; about the long history of the form and his own lifelong infatuation with it; and about whether – given our dwindling attention span and appetite for zingers on...

On this week’s Book Club podcast I’m joined by debut author Leon Craig to talk about her novel The Decadence – a story of millennial debauchery in a haunted house which uses a knowing patchwork of literary influences from Boccaccio and Shirley Jackson to Martin Amis and Mark Z. Danielewski to make an old form fresh. She discusses how and why it took her so long to write, how she first acquired a t...

Ben Myers joins Sam Leith to discuss his book Jesus Christ Kinski, which he describes as a ‘novel about a film about a performance about Jesus’. Klaus Kinski was one of Germany’s biggest actors of the 20th Century – but he was also one of the most controversial, and Ben questions if he was one of the worst people to have ever lived. In this novel, Kinski returns for a one-man performance abou...

Sam Leith’s guest this week is Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust . They discuss why trust is such an important value for public debate, and how it can address polarisation in society. Jimmy addresses the challenge Elon Musk has posed to Wikipedia after the entrepreneur branded the site as ‘woke’, despite the pair having a personal relationship. Sam also a...

Sam Leith's guest this week is Graham Robb. In his new book  The Discovery of Britain: An Accidental History , Graham takes us on a time-travelling bicycle tour of the island's history. They discuss how Graham weaves together personal memories with geography and history, his 'major cartographic scoop' which unlocks Iron Age Britain and contemporary debates about national identity. Graham also...

Nat Jansz joins Sam Leith to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Moomin novels. The first of these, Comet in Moominland , was revised by author Tove Jansson a decade after the original publication date. To celebrate the anniversary Sort of Books , co-run by Jansz, is publishing this revised edition for the first time in English. Jansz discusses why she finds the books so compelling, the influenc...

Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the crime writer Peter James. Peter has contributed the introduction to a new edition of the classic thriller  The Eagle Has Landed , which is 50 years old this month. He tells Sam what it was that made Jack Higgins's novel so groundbreaking, about what it takes to make you root for the bad guys, how thrillers and detective stories di...

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Luke Kemp. In his new book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse , Luke seeks lessons from prehistory to understand how societies grow and flourish, what kills them, and where we are now. He tells me what Hobbes got wrong, why ‘civilisation’ isn’t always the boon we have been taught to think it is, and why societal collapse might...

his week’s Book Club podcast is Ben Schott. The author of the world- (or downstairs-loo-) conquering Schott’s Original Miscellany returns with Schott’s Significa , a deeply reported and constantly surprising book in which he uses the private languages of various communities – from gondoliers to graffiti writers and from Swifties to sommeliers – as a way of understanding their worlds. Ben tells me...

Michael Gove speaks to Jeffrey Archer about his life, career and his new novel End Game, which marks the gripping finale of the William Warwick series. This discussion was part of the Spectator's speaker series. To see more on our upcoming events – including with Charles Moore and with Bernard Cornwell – go to events.spectator.co.uk Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast withou...

Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the historical novelist Philippa Gregory. In her gripping new book Boleyn Traitor , Philippa seeks to rescue Jane Boleyn from the vast condescension of history. She tells Sam how fiction allows her to make plausible speculations about the gaps in the record, how she works to make the Tudors speak to us in language we can recognise, wh...

Sam's guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, whose new book Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World reframes the story of Atlantic slavery. He explains why the familiar tale of enlightened Europeans bringing about abolition leaves out the most important voices of all – the enslaved themselves – and how from Africa to H...

Sam Leith's guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Roger Lewis, whose book The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has been republished to mark 100 years since the comedian's birth. Roger tells Sam about the difference between Sellers's public persona and private life, plus his influence on comedy today. They also discuss how Roger reinvented the way biographies were written, and whether the view h...