Books Up Close: The Podcast

In this episode, we read a passage from the end of chapter 1 of Abigail Bergstrom's new novel Selfish Girls . You can buy this and her previous book What a Shame from your local bookshop or Bookshop.org . Abigail Bergstrom is an author and writer, she has written for national magazines and broadsheets including the Guardian, Sunday Times , the Telegraph , Grazia and ELLE, and she reviews books for...

In this episode, we read Peter Scalpello's poem 'Performance Archive', which you can read online at Berlin Lit . You can also buy Peter's first collection Limbic from your local bookshop or at Cipher Press . Peter Scalpello is a poet and psychotherapist from Glasgow, based in London. Their work has appeared in Five Dials , Granta , The London Magazine and the New York Times , among other publicati...

These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! You can buy The Emperor of Gladness at a local bookshop or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd .

In this episode, we read the opening of the story 'Shut Your Mouth' from Marni Appleton's collection I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY . Buy the book from a local indie bookshop, Bookshop.org, or Indigo Press . Marni Appleton is a writer living in London. She holds a PhD in creative and critical writing from the University of East Anglia. Her fiction has been published in literary journals such as The London Ma...

In this episode, we read the opening passage from Gurnaik Johal's new novel Saraswati (2025). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org . Gurnaik Johal’s short story collection, We Move , won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Tata Literature Live! Prize and the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize in 2022. Saraswati , his first novel, is out on 12th June. Find the transcript an...

In this episode, I review Sophie Lewis' Enemy Feminisms . These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! You can buy Enemy Feminisms from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd .

In this episode, we read a passage (p. 55 of the hardback) from Tawseef Khan's novel Determination (2024). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org . Tawseef Khan is a qualified immigration solicitor and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Liverpool, where he examined the fairness of the British asylum system. He is also a graduate of the creative writing programme...

In this episode, I review Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection (2022/5), trans. by Sophie Hughes.  These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! You can buy Perfection from your local bookstore, Fitzcarraldo, or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here ....

In this episode, we read a passage from Amy Key's Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life (2023). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org . Amy Key is a writer based in London. She is the author of Arrangements in Blue (Jonathan Cape, 2023), chosen as a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times , Independent , Irish Times and Granta and shortlisted by Foyles for the...

In this episode, I review Anthony Passeron's Sleeping Children (2022/5). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! You can buy Sleeping Children your local bookstore or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris L...

In this episode, we read the opening of Lola Olufemi's Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (2021). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, Bookshop.org, or directly from Hajar Press . Dr. Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher who  completed her doctorate based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westmin...

In this episode, I review Saou Ichikawa's novel Hunchback (2023). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! You can buy Ichikawa's novel from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloy...

In this episode, we read the opening of Seán Hewitt's Open, Heaven (2025). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org . Seán Hewitt’s debut poetry collection, Tongues of Fire , received the Laurel Prize and was shortlisted for many awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. All Down Darkness Wide , his memoir, was shortlisted for Biography of the Y...

In this episode, I review Torrey Peters' book Stag Dance (2025). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!  You can buy Torrey Peters' book from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org . Follow the podcast on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Ch...

In this episode, we read Richie Hofmann's poem 'Breed Me', first published in Poetry . You can buy Richie's other books from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org . Richie Hofmann’s new book of poems, The Bronze Arms , is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf. He is also the author of A Hundred Lovers and Second Empire , and his poems appear in The New Yorker , The Paris Review , and Poetry...

In this episode, we read the start of chapter 4 of Noreen Masud's A Flat Place (2023), pages 98-9 in the UK paperback edition. Buy the book from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org . Noreen Masud is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol, and an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker. Her academic monograph, Stevie Smith and the Aphorism: Hard Language (Oxford Univers...

In this episode, we read Andrew McMillan's Pity (2024). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org . Andrew McMillan’s debut collection physical was the only ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers’...

In this episode, we read the ending of Olivia Sudjic's Asylum Road (2021). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org . Olivia Sudjic was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels ( Asylum Road and Sympathy ), and Exposure , a non-fiction exploration of art-making, feminism and anxiety in the digita...

In this trailer, hear Chris Lloyd introduce his new podcast, a spinoff of the Books Up Close YouTube channel. The first episode drops FEBRUARY 14.  Please subscribe now and be ready for it. Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack . Follow the show on Instagram . Please leave feedback here . Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd .