A Pair of Bookends

Welcome back Bookends! Today's episode is a joyous one, we had Meg Clothier on to chat to us about her brilliant new book 'The Book of Eve', an exciting and magical exploration of women and power and the forces of religion and beyond. We loved it and highly recommend you get yourselves a copy! It's out now and published by Wildfire. Aswell as chatting about the book, we discuss the overlap between...

Welcome back Bookends to another episode in our Debut Spotlight series, where we shine the light on the freshest new authors and their work. For this episode, we were joined by the wonderful Costanza Casati, author of one of our favourite reads this year, the powerhouse myth retelling- 'Clytemnestra'. We discuss the importance of keeping these stories alive for future generations, why it was impor...

Hey bookends! We're so delighted to bring you our March Book Club episode, in conversation with the force of nature that is Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ, author of the magical, breathtaking new novel 'Dazzling' which we hope you can join us in reading! We discuss her inspiration for Dazzling, why Wildfire was the obvious choice of publisher for her, the state of the economy and how that impacts the art tha...

Hey Bookends! It's our favourite time of year and we are here to bring you a 'minisode' of all of our thoughts on this year's Women's Prize For Fiction Longlist, we are always so excited for the release of this list and this year was no different! Apologies in advance for how sweary we are, we were very excited and borderline delirious after recording two pods in one day... but if deep diving into...

Welcome back Bookends to the latest instalment in our Debut Spotlight series, where we shine the spotlight on some of the freshest, most exciting new authors to put on your radar. Back in January we recorded an episode with the wonderful Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow to discuss her incredible debut novel 'All The Little Bird-Hearts' which we both completely adored. Aswell as talking through her journey in...

Hello to all you fabulous Bookends! We are so delighted to be bringing you a Bonus Book Club episode this month, where we are in conversation with the incredible Man Booker Prize longlisted author Sophie Mackintosh with her latest novel, the Women's Prize long-listed 'Cursed Bread'. We chatted to Sophie about her experiences with rejection, how a historical poisoning in rural France inspired her l...

Welcome back Bookends to our latest episode in our Debut Spotlight series, this episode is with Swedish Sami journalist and author Ann-Helen Laestadius to discuss her best-selling debut adult novel 'Stolen', published in the UK in January after a huge bout of success in Sweden in 2021. TW: This conversation includes discussion of animal abuse and mental illness which some listeners may find distre...

Welcome back Bookends to our latest instalment in our Debut Spotlight series! This week we were joined by writer Nicole Flattery to chat about her upcoming novel 'Nothing Special', we loved chatting to Nicole about how she didn't fully kick off her writing career until her late twenties and how odd it is that we view women's success against a timeline. Aswell as deep diving into her brilliant book...

Welcome back Bookends to another Book Club episode! Our Feb book choice is the brilliantly unsettling Are You Happy Now, a book that will give you whiplash for all its twists and turns! An incredible dystopia about the mental health crisis and millenial life. We were joined by author Hanna Jameson and we had a great time chatting to her about the book, fan fiction communities, curating playlists f...

Happy Monday Bookends! Welcome back to the latest episode in our Debut Spotlight series, this time we are in conversation with the Carribean Author and Poet Kevin Jared Hosein, author of upcoming debut international novel 'Hungry Ghosts' (publishing on 16th of Feb with Bloomsbury). It was such a delight to chat to Kevin about his incredible novel which explores class, grief, loss, religion, morali...

Welcome back bookends to another episode in our Debut Spotlight series where we are in conversation with the wonderful Imogen Crimp, author of the incredible debut 'A Very Nice Girl' which we both loved! We find out why Imogen made the leap from training to be an opera singer to publishing her debut novel, deep dive into power, money, desire and self-worth and how powerful her writing is of an act...

Welcome back Bookends to our next instalment in our Debut Spotlight series, this time with author Eleanor Shearer who we are sure her debut 'River Sing Me Home' will be a future classic. Drawing on some of her own family history and a huge amount of research, River sing me home is a book about one woman escaping her plantation to search for her five children. Aswell as finding out about Eleanor's...

Welcome back bookends to our second episode in our Debut Spotlight series with author Victoria MacKenzie and her debut novel 'For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain' which was published on the 19th of January by Bloomsbury. Trigger warning: Mention of child/infant loss, talk of death/grief. We speak about Victoria's experience of not getting her first book published, how she started out a...

Welcome back bookends to our first book club episode of 2023! Our January book club pick is the powerhouse short story collection 'Send Nudes', for this episode we were joined by the author of the book, the insanely talented Saba Sams. We talk about the messiness of humans, the joy of getting our worst impulses down on the page and why a vagina smelling like prawn cocktail crisps is potentially th...

Happy belated new year bookends! We're back with a minisode, a real recommendation extravaganza. We talk through our Top 5 books of last year, the 2023 releases we're excited about, the adaptations we're looking forward to, why we should have an adaptation series (all in favour say aye!) and much, much more. We will be bringing lots more of these minisodes to you this year alongside lots more auth...

WE'RE BACK BOOKENDS! Happy new year! We are so excited to be bringing you the first in our new 'Debut Spotlight' series, each episode we will be in conversation with a debut author, chatting about their debut journey, putting their book on your radar and as always getting their recommendations. This episode is with Rosie Andrews, author of The Leviathan which is out in paperback now, you can order...

Welcome to our FINAL episode of the year - the Christmas Special! We stripped this one right back to our OG episodes, just the two of us, rambling about our fave festive books, food, TV & more, it's pure festive fun and we hope you love it! Christmas Films mentioned: Single All The Way - Netflix Love Actually Home Alone 2 Elf Die Hard (debatable) Other recommendations: The Shining by Stephen K...

Welcome back bookends to our FINAL Book Club episode of the year! We were joined by the beautiful person & author that is, Meg Howrey, to chat about her novel, They're Going To Love You. We couldn't wait to dive in and chat about this book, it's set in New York during the AIDS crisis and follows Carlisle, a young woman training to be a professional ballet dancer, torn between her professional and...

Hey Bookends! We are back this week with another instalment in our 'Top of your TBR' series and this time we are joined by the warm, funny and generous Cherie Jones- who is the phenomenal writer of the Women's Prize shortlisted novel 'How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House' and she's bringing you an incredible list of recommendations! In this episode, we chat through her four chosen book titles...

Welcome back bookends! Our November book club pick is the incredible, weird and wonderful debut novel Isaac and the Egg. We were so pleased to have Bobby Palmer (Freelance Journalist and author of Isaac and the Egg) on to chat about his work, 80's pop culture references, men's mental health and much, much more. He is every bit as funny and brilliant as his book, we hope you love this conversation....

Hey Bookends! We are thrilled to be bringing you our October book club episode where we chat to the absolute powerhouse that is Kamila Shamsie, about her latest novel 'Best Of Friends', which we cannot recommend enough. We spoke about childhood friendship, our standpoints on dog-earing book pages, class division and politics in Pakistan and London, the concept of 'girl-fear' and much more. It was...

Hey bookends! We are thrilled to introduce our latest guest in our 'Top Of Your TBR' series, the author of the incredible dystopian novel 'Dreamland'. This is the longest conversation we've done so far but Rosa was truly the most warm and generous guest and we really hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Books & Authors mentioned: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan Small Things Like These by Claire Keeg...

Welcome back bookends! Our third episode in our Top Of Your TBR series features the wonderful Claire Fuller and my goodness, does she have some excellent book recs for you! We absolutely loved reading her four choices and we hope you do too. Books mentioned: New Animal by Ella Baxter Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy Top Of Your TBR recommendations: Snegurochka...

Hey bookends! Welcome back to another book club episode, this month's book club pick is The Life Of The Mind by Christine Smallwood, an incredible debut novel that explores miscarriage, female friendship, loss and faith and how these things interlink. We are thrilled to have Christine on the podcast and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did- please note the conversation does includ...

Welcome back bookends to another book club episode! This month's book club pick is Common Decency- the second novel by the immensely talented author and poet Susannah Dickey who we were thrilled to spend an hour chatting to! We recorded via zoom with some occasional internet issues so we apologise for any audio that may have been affected. Trigger Warning: conversations on grief. Aswell as a deep...