Reading for Attention

In this week’s epster, we discuss Margaret Atwood’s latest short story, My Evil Mother. Y’know why? Because it’s dead short. But y’know what? It was dead good.  Afterwards, we talk about our dream meals. Not like we’ve stolen the format from another famous poddy or anything. LOL.  Adore you all x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's eppy brings you our Nobel prize-worthy thoughts on Douglas Stuart's second novel, Young Mungo. Set in the East end of Glasgae - Scottish for Glasgow for those who aren't in the know - this beautiful/heartbreaking/stunning/tearjerking novel is all about what it means to be stuck within the confines of a repressive existence. We implore you to read this book and if you don't it means you...

In this week's ep of Reading For Attention, we are thouroughly bewildered by Richard Powers' latest offering - a Booker-shortlisted novel about fatherly love, science and a knock-off Greta Thunberg. There's a chance we're also bewildered from drinking bootleg Long Island Iced Tea containing five shots of random spirits we found in our cupboards. After our intellectual discussion about climate chan...

In this week's eppy, we're talking about Raven Leiliani's millenial debut, Luster. We follow Edie (who knew?), a black woman in her early twenties who gets involved in a love triangle with a fortysomething white man in an open-ish marriage. Bizarre. We wash the story down with a Love and Lust cocktail, and Paul substitutes the watermelon for pomegranate juice in solidarity with Sarah and her atten...

In this week’s eppy, it’s Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto On Never Bloody Well Giving Up. After winning the Booker Prize in 2019 for her triumphant novel, Girl Woman Other, our Bernadine became an overnight success. But Manifesto stories the 40 plus years of slogging it took to make that happen. Get ready for her work ethic to make you feel like a lazy shite. We pair Manifesto with a gorgeous (and...

Hi hunnies. It's Sarah and Paul. How have you been coping without us? We presume life hasn't been nearly the same since our sensual tones left your hairy ear canals. But you're in luck because Reading for Attention is BACK. In the sensational launch eppy of series two (which is nothing short of a masterpiece and that's a fact fact fact) we start off with a big ol' catch up. Paul updates us on his...

Well hunnies, this is it. Big fat hankies at the ready because series one of Reading for Attention has come to an end. We encourage you to take a couple of days off work to deal with the trauma.  The final eppy is all about Sarah and Paul’s top 3 books of the series, tales from Sazzy’s birthday and Paul’s upcoming trip to the US of A, the main goal of which is to stalk as many Real Housewives as p...

In this week’s ep, Old Dickie Osmo is back with The Man Who Died Twice, sequel to The Thursday Murder Club. The same gang of gerries are back to investigating murders but this time, the stakes are high AF. We’re talking diamonds worth 20 mill, mafia drug lords and bodies piling up like nobody’s bloody business. Sarah and Paul chat about Dickie’s growth as a writer (and his massive flipper feet) ov...

In this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Sarah and Paul yammer on about Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by the undisputed millennial GOAT, Michaela Coel. Adapted from her 2018 MacTaggart Lecture, Coel champions ‘misfits’ everywhere, shedding light on racism in the TV industry. She weaves in tales of growing up in East London, and her journey to becoming an absolute living legend. P & S force...

In episode 16 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah burst with nostalgia reading Jason June’s YA debut, Jay’s Gay Agenda. Jay lives in a boring, straight town somewhere in America. He’s never met a gay person and has certainly never seen a peen (other than his own, obv). But when his family relocates to Seattle, Jay becomes the horny teenager he’s always dreamed of being. Sex-positive and fraug...

In episode 15 of Reading for Attention, Pazzy n Sazzy jump into Zaina Arafat’s debut novel, You Exist Too Much. The unnamed Palestinian-American narrator can't escape the liminal spaces of her complex existence, and is desperate to find a home that makes sense of her sexuality and heritage at the same time. S&P neck a cardamon (cardamom?) cosmopolitan as they yap on about this one. New York meets...

In this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Sarah and Paul dive into The Thursday Murder Club, the record-breaking debut novel by Richard Osman aka Paul’s close personal friend. Meet Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Roy, residents of the luxurious Cooper’s Chase retirement village in Kent. The core four get together every Thursday (duh) to solve cold cases using expertise from their former caree...

In episode thirteen of Reading for Attention, Saz and Paz take on Amia Srinivasan’s collection of essays, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Century, which cover a range of topics including porn, not sleeping with students, incel culture and how sex must be deemed an inherently political act. Don’t worry though - they balance all that superficial stuff out with a heavy dose of Love Island chat...

In episode 12 of Reading for Attention, Saz and Paz (new nicknames they’re trying out) are glugging Big Tom Bloody Marys after a wine-drenched weekend together in Kent. They can’t help but wallow in the (slightly later than usual) onset of the January blues but it’s ok because they then get to wax lyrical over Eliza Clark’s twisted, pitch-black comedy, Boy Parts. It’s set in the toon so Paul can’t...

In the first episode of 2022, Paul and Sarah discuss their first ever fan-recommended book, Absorbed by Kylie Whitehead. This genre-bending tale is darkly comic, mega millennial and all-round weird AF. The protagonist literally absorbs her boyfriend so he can't leave her - very Paul and Saz vibes.  Other topics the huns ramble on about in this ep: Lindsay Lohan, catastrophic New Year's resolution...

In this week's super speshy New Year’s Eve eppy, Paul and Sarah haven't even read a book (and they are buzzing about it). Instead, they talk about their favourite 2021 moments, from Ukrainian bangers to Kim Kardashian serving Met Gala dementor chic. But most importantly, they reminisce about the moments that earned them their biggest dollop of that gorgeous gorgeous attention.  See you in the New...

The Christmas Special episode of Reading for Attention is here! This week, Paul and Sarah snuggle up with a toasty mug of mulled wine and a hunky lumberjack-cum-Santa (pun absolutely intended). Keira Andrews leaves readers tingly in the nether regions and definitely on the naughty list with her tale of Hunter and Nick, an unlikely pair who find themselves snowed in and together on Nick's Christmas...

In episode 8 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah make their first foray into the world of non-fiction, chatting about Shon Faye's The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice. While most people spent their lockdowns making shit banana bread and crying, Shon Faye penned a Sunday Times bestseller which explores transgender liberation in the UK. The Transgender Issue is as urgent as it is acce...

In episode 7 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah discuss Damon Galgut’s The Promise, winner of the 2021 Man Booker Prize. The novel follows the Swarts family through four decades, beginning in 1986, and maps the trickle-down effects of societal and cultural changes in South Africa. Galgut packs a helluva lot into this family saga including death, racism, dark humour and an unexpected line abo...

In episode 6 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah discuss Zakiya Dalila Harris’s hotly anticipated debut novel, The Other Black Girl.  Nella is the only black employee at the esteemed publishing house, Wagner Books. A young and ambitious assistant editor, she endures daily racist microaggressions from her white colleagues. When Hazel - another black woman - joins the company, Nella is thrilled...

On this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah ramble on about Matt Haig’s 2020 smash hit, The Midnight Library, which captured the world’s collective heart, selling 2 million copies in less than a year.  Join Nora Seed in The Midnight Library, a magical realm betwixt life and death where it is possible to undo all the regrets you want. This would be helpful for Paul and Sarah who...

In this week's episode of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah dive into the mobster-ruled world of Harlem in the late 1950s. Colson Whitehead's eighth novel, Harlem Shuffle, is a story divided into three parts, woven together through deliciously detailed settings, complex characters, and sociopolitical issues that still bear true almost seventy years later.  Despite the heavy themes, Paul and Sa...

Episode 3 of Reading for Attention is here! Paul and Sarah chat about Bryan Washington’s debut novel, Memorial , which earned him critical acclaim AND the Stonewall Book Award 2021. Talk about attention-seeking. Memorial is partly set in Japan so the drink this week is a mega-classy Lychee Sake Martini. Delicious. (And dangerous, because there’s no mixer.) When the book chat and cocktails run dry,...

Episode 2 of Reading for Attention is here!  This week Paul and Sarah discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's newest novel  Klara and the Sun . The eighth novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author is a dystopian sci-fi set in a sometimes horrifying close future but with a sunny outlook. So sunny, in fact, that Paul and Sarah decide to wash it down with a tequila sunrise and some questionable imaginings of the main...

The first episode of Reading for Attention is here!  This week Paul and Sarah discuss Sally Rooney's latest release  Beautiful World Where Are You.  Widely considered as one of the first writers to really capture the 'millenial voice', Rooney skyrocketed to the top of national and international bestseller lists with her second novel Normal People . Released in September Beautiful World demonstrate...