Mostly Books Meets...

This week, Jack is joined by debut novelist Khashayar J. Khabushani. Khashayar's hotly anticipated first novel, I Will Greet the Sun Again, is a beautiful novel about family, queer adolescence, and the multifaceted nature of identity and while it is a story unafraid to face difficult subject matter, just like the poem from which it takes its title, it is ultimately a novel filled with love.  Purch...

This week, Jack is joined by novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. Rowan's first novel was 2017's Harmless Like You, which won a Betty Trask and Authors Club First Novel Award. Since then, she has penned Starling Days, and now this year she has released her third novel, The Sleep Watcher, an exquisite exploration of adolescence, family, and the complexity of love. Purchase The Sleep Watcher (0:27) Intro...

This week, Jack is joined by the legendary international literary agent, Barbara J. Zitwer. Barbara has been at the forefront of bringing some of the most exciting voices from Korea over to the Anglosphere, from Han Kang, the author of The Vegetarian, to the Man Asian Booker Prize winner, Shin Kyung-sook, to name a few. Now she has released her own book, The Korean Book of Happiness, sharing with...

This week, Jack is joined by novelist Kate Mascarenas. To date, Kate has published three novels, including The Psychology of Time Travel and The Thief on the Winged Horse. Her third and most recent is the gorgeously gothic Hokey Pokey. Set in 1929 at the Regent Hotel, Birmingham, Nora checks in under a false name. She is there to spy on the famed operatic singer Berenice Oxbow. But just like the R...

This week, Jack is joined by author and musician Mat Osman. Mat is the founding member of the British rock band Suede. In 2020 his first novel The Ruins was released and this year it was followed by his hotly anticipated second book The Ghost Theatre which was chosen as a book of the year 2023 by The Observer, The Times and The Evening Standard. Purchase The Ghost Theatre (0:27) Introduction (1:02...

This week, Jack is joined by novelist Sophie Mackintosh. Sophie's first book, The Water Cure, was published in 2018 and was long-listed for that year's Booker Prize. In 2020 came her second novel, Blue Ticket, and this year she published the haunting and dreamlike Cursed Bread, which was long-listed for the Women's Prize. Sophie was also included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list. P...

This week, Jack is joined by writer and academic Blessin Adams. Blessin's book, Great and Horrible News was published on the 30th of March this year. It is a wonderful exploration of murder and violent death in the early modern period, told through the lives of the ordinary people that experienced it. It is a hugely engrossing and often touching read, which marks a brilliant new voice in non-ficti...

This week, Jack is joined by debut author Stephen Buoro. Stephen's novel, the Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa was published on the 13th of April. It's already received impressive praise. Author Max Porter described it as eccentric, profound and timely and says he fell in love immediately. In this episode, Stephen delves into the themes of his debut novel, including duality, faith, and scie...

This week Jack is joined by Alice Winn. Alice Winn's gorgeous In Memoriam follows Elwood and Gaunt, two boarding school boys desperately in love with one another. Together they navigate the highs and lows of school life until World War I comes crashing into their lives, irrevocably changing them and the world they know forever. Purchase In Memoriam (0:27) Introduction (1:23) Being a debut author (...

This week Sarah is joined by Reverend Richard Coles. Richard is co-presenter of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live and is regularly seen as a guest panelist on shows such as Would I Lie to You, Have I Got News for You, and QI. He first came to the public's attention in the mid-1980s as part of the pop duo The Communards. After deciding to study theology in the early 90s, the Reverend embarked on a new li...

This week Jack is joined by Elly Griffiths. In 2009 she released The Crossing Places and introduced the world to the wonderful Dr Ruth Galloway who over several books has garnered a loyal cohort of fans from across the world. Now many mysteries later Ruth's story is coming to an end with the release of The Last Remains in January of this year. Elly has also penned the Brighton Mysteries series as...

This week Jack is joined by Cecile Pin. Her debut novel, Wandering Souls, tells the story of three siblings who flee Vietnam after the terrors of war, and find themselves orphaned and seeking a new home in Thatcher's Britain. Purchase Wandering Souls (0:27) Introduction and Childhood reads (9:14) Fact and Fiction (19:01) Being a debut author and moving forward (23:19) Working in publishing as a wr...

This week Jack is joined by Kevin Jared Hossein. His latest book, Hungry Ghosts is set in rural 1940s Trinidad and follows two households, the wealthy Changoors and the impoverished Sharups. It is a novel about family, caste, religion and violence. Purchase Hungry Ghosts (1:06) Publishing the novel (4:07) Childhood reads (12:47) Kevin's approach to writing (18:41) Modern reading habits (32:43) A b...

This week Jack is joined by debut author Santanu Bhattacharya. Santanu was included in the Guardians list of the 10 best new novelists of 2023 and in 2021 he won the Mo Siewcharran prize. His novel One Small Voice is a beautiful novel brimming with humanity and populated by a cast of characters that feel so real you could reach out and touch them. Purchase One Small Voice (0:58) The release of One...

This week Jack is joined by poet and debut novelist Victoria Mackenzie. Victoria's novel For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain, which follows two medieval mystics, Marjery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. It is an exquisite historical fiction debut which explores themes of faith, trauma, and women's writing. Purchase For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain (1:03) Being a debut author...

This week, Jack is joined by debut author Eleanor Shearer. Eleanor’s novel River Sing Me Home was published on the 19th of January. The story follows Rachel, who after escaping slavery goes on the search for her missing children. Jeanette Winterson called it "a strong and beautiful novel that stares into the face of brutality and the heart of love". Purchase River Sing Me Home (1:16) Becoming a de...

This week, Jack is joined by Georgina Moore. Georgina has worked in the publishing industry for 20 years and is an award-winning book publicist. It is no wonder that having spent her life immersed in the world of books that she has decided to put pen to paper and write one herself. That book, the wonderful and absorbing The Garnett Girls follows three sisters Rachel, Imogen and Sasha and their rel...

Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, a podcast by the independent bookshop, Mostly Books. Booksellers from an award-winning indie bookshop chatting books and how they have shaped people's lives, with a whole bunch of people from the world of publishing - authors, poets, journalists and many more. Join us for the journey. Meet the host: Jack Wrighton is a bookseller and social media manager at Mostly Boo...

This week, Jenny Bayliss and Karen Swan join Jack for this holly, jolly Christmas Mostly Books Meets special. Jenny Bayliss is the author of the 12 Dates of Christmas and The Winter of Second Chances and her latest book is the wonderful Meet Me Under the Mistletoe. Karen Swan is the author of this year's The Last Summer, which is the first in the five-book Wild Isle series, and has now treated us...

This week, we welcome author Chloe Timms onto the podcast. Chloe Timms' debut novel The Seawomen was published in June of this year. The book follows Esther, a young woman raised on an island within a deeply religious society, that cut itself off from the mainland. Fellow author Kirsty Logan described it as The Handmaid's Tale meets The Shape of Water. When she's not writing Chloe is a passionate...

This week, Jack is joined by author Maggie Shipstead to discuss her novel Great Circle. Great Circle was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction and Maggie has also penned two previous novels, 2012s Seating Arrangements, and 2014s Astonish Me. More recently, she's released a collection of short stories called You Have a Friend in 10A. Purchase Great Circle here (1:5...

This week, Jack is joined by children's book dream team Greg James and Chris Smith. In 2017, they launched onto shelves with the hilarious Kid Normal, which quickly went on to become a best-seller. Since then they have penned three more Kid Normal books, The Great Dream Robbery and their latest book, Super Ghost released in September of this year. When they're not writing, they both like to relax...

This week, we are thrilled to be speaking to author Julia Boyd. In 2017, she released the spellbinding Travellers in the Third Reich, a history of the rise of fascism told through the first-hand accounts of those who had travelled through Germany. It went on to become a Sunday Times top three best seller and to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for history in 2018. In May of this year, Julia re...

We welcome onto the podcast this week author Salley Vickers. Salley's first novel Miss Garnet's Angel was published in the year 2000. Since then, she has gone on to pen 11 novels in total as well as collections of short stories. Previously, she worked as a teacher and a psycho-analyst. Her storytelling has won her many fans and she's a Sunday Times bestseller. Her latest book The Gardener is a bea...

It is our great pleasure to welcome onto the podcast this week Liz Calder and Alexandra Pringle. Liz was one of the founding directors of Bloomsbury and was editor-in-chief from 1987 to the year 2000, after which she passed the baton on to Alexandra, who served in the role until 2020. Between them, they have published Nobel Prize, Booker Prize and Women's Prize winners and have published household...