Logroll

This episode is an interview with the journalist Sarah Ditum, discussing her book Toxic and her journalism. The book is about our treatment of famous women in the Noughties, told through the stories of nine women in particular: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Chynah and Jennifer Aniston. Sarah explained why she wrote it, the evolu...

This is an interview with John Niven about his writing career, particularly his latest book O Brother, which was shortlisted for the 2024 Gordon Burn Prize. O Brother is about the suicide of his brother. While John was making his way in the music industry and then as a successful writer, starting with his novel Kill Your Friends, his brother remained in Scotland where his life was chaotic. He ulti...

This is an interview with Chris Mullin about his 1986 book Error of Judgement, which was an investigation into the conviction of six innocent men for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974. The book documents his efforts to find the truth, culminating in finding one of the real bombers. We speak about his career in journalism before the book, when he went to Vietnam in the 1970s to cover the war ther...

In this epsiode I interviewed Michael Holden, an exceptional writer who started his career at Loaded magazine in 1994. He ended up in a psychiatric hospital during that time, which we discuss. After that he wrote for The Guardian Guide before becoming a Hollywood writer. Then he ended up back living with his elderly parents, caring for them. The result was a book called The Reluctant Carer, which...

I spoke to Sally Hayden about her book My Fourth Time, We Drowned.  It's about people who tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe but ended up locked in detention centres in Libya. The book won the Orwell Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. She describes it as a 'book of evidence'. We talked about:  her early reporting on the story while working for Vice the...

This episode features David Whitehouse discussing his Gordon Burn Prize-shortlisted nonfiction book About A Son. It's about Colin Hehir's battle to know the truth about his son's murderer. The book is written in second-person, which we get into. We also discuss why David switched from novels to nonfiction, his start in men's magazines, how he got the material for this book, and finally ethics, inc...

In this episode I interviewed Keith Blackmore, who edited Philip Gould’s book When I Die, which was published after Philip had died. Philip was one of the architects of New Labour, but in 2011 he had cancer. Keith, then the deputy editor at The Times, started serialising an essay Philip had written about his experience, which later formed part of the book. A few months later, Philip died, after wh...

A slightly different episode, this time I spoke to David Wolf, editor of The Guardian Long Read, about their new magazine-format publication comprising some of their best pieces. David previously worked for Prospect magazine, so we talked a bit about his road to becoming editor of Guardian Long Read, before getting into the mechanics of producing longform journalism, what can go wrong, and what th...

I spoke to David James Smith about his book The Sleep of Reason, which is about the murder of James Bulger. David is a tremendous journalist who has written features for places like The Sunday Times Magazine and Esquire. We talked about his early career in journalism and how he came to be commissioned to write a book about the murder of James Bulger weeks after it happened. We spoke about the ethi...

This is an interview with Will Storr about his book The Status Game, which was named a book of the year by The Times and was recently championed on Joe Rogan's podcast. Will is my friend and former features editor. We started off talking about how he got into journalism, his early Gonzo-influenced magazine work at Loaded, and how he shifted into becoming an award-winning journalist for broadsheets...

This was a hugely revealing conversation with David Blum, who now works for Audible, but once wrote books. We started off talking about David's early journalism career, including the famous 1985 New York Magazine article about the Brat Pack, a phrase he coined. He then wrote the book Flash in the Pan which came out in 1992. It was about a New York restaurant, invested in by actor Matt Dillon. For...

For this episode I spoke to American writer Jo Ann Beard about her latest collection Festival Days and her previous collection The Boys of My Youth. We talked about fact, fiction, creative writing, journalism, how her experience of a workplace shooting in which people died changed her writing career, writing for the New Yorker, writing about death or proximity to death, how she feels about using p...

For this episode I spoke to Sam Knight about his book The Premonitions Bureau, published by Faber. It's nonfiction, about a phsyciatrist, a journalist, and an experiment they ran for a while to see whether people could predict the future. I won't give the ending away. You can buy Sam's book here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-premonitions-bureau-a-sunday-times-bestseller/9780571357567 The book...

In this episode I interview Michela Wrong about her book Do Not Disturb, which is about the murder of Rwanda's former head of intelligence Patrick Karegeya. We talked about her interviews with people who had been asked to murder Karegeya, what it was like to criticise Rwandan president Paul Kagame, and how it felt when he responded on national television. We also discussed her experience reporting...

After a bit of a wait, finally this is the Adam Hochschild episode. Adam teaches journalism at Berkeley, which we talk a bit about as well as some of his other books. The focus though was King Leopold's Ghost, published in 1998, which is about Belgian's use of slavery for their rubber and ivory trade in the Congo in the 19th and 20th centuries. We focused on how he researched the book, including h...

In this episode I interviewed American journalist and lawyer Alia Malek, whose work has been published by the New York Times and New Yorker. I spoke to her about her 2017 book The Home That Was Our Country, which is partly about moving to her grandmother's flat in Damascus from 2011 to 2013, but also about Syria. We talked about the murder of one of her relatives when she was on a childhood visit...

In this episode I talked to Jon Ronson about his book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. We covered his career leading up to the book, how he nailed down the idea, how a book deal works for an author at his level, and what the impact of the book was. You can buy all his books here: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/jon-ronson Jon also recommended Craig Brown’s book about the Beatles which you can...

This episode I spoke to New York Times writer Jon Mooallem about his book This is Chance! The book is about a huge but little-known earthquake in Alaska. I talked to Jon about why he chose the story, how he got so much rich material, and how people have responded to the book. We also spoke about his earlier work, including his first book, Wild Ones. You can buy Jon's books here: https://bookshop.o...

In this episode of Logroll I spoke to Cathy Rentzenbrink about her book The Last Act of Love. The book is about her brother, Matty, who was hit by a car, and what happened afterwards. We talked about her early attempts to write about it, her approach to memoir, and the difficulty of memory. You can buy Cathy's books, including her new one, Write It All Down, here: https://uk.bookshop.org/contribut...

In this episode of Logroll I spoke to Carl Anka, writer for the Athletic, about his book You Are A Champion, which he wrote with professional footballer Marcus Rashford. It is a book for children, so we talked about getting the tone right, as well as lots about how you get hired for a project like this, and how to balance the needs of the writer, famous co-author and publisher. It was recorded way...

In this episode of Logroll I spoke to Suzy Hansen, contributing writer for New York Times Magazine, about her book, Notes on a Foreign Country. We talked about why she moved to Istanbul, how the idea for the book changed, and the things she included which might make us flinch but why it was important to include them. You can buy Suzy’s book, Notes on a Foreign Country, here: https://uk.bookshop.or...

This episode I spoke to author Andy Miller about his book 'The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life'. We spoke about what made that book special, why he had such a gap between his books, and about writing about himself as a character. Here is a link to buy his book: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-year-of-reading-dangerously-how-fifty-great-books-saved-my-life/9780007...

This episode I spoke to Atlantic writer Helen Lewis about her book 'Difficult Women: A history of feminism in 11 fights'. We spoke about digging through archives, writing about complicated people, and the benefit of interviewing people as they get older. Here is a link to buy Helen's book: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/difficult-women-a-history-of-feminism-in-11-fights-the-sunday-times-bestseller/...

An interview with GQ writer (for the American edition) and author Chris Heath about his book about Robbie Williams, 'Feel'. We also talked about his Pet Shop Boys books, 'Literally' and 'Pet Shop Boys versus America'. Here is a link to buy Chris's books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/chris-heath Chris also recommended 'Love Me Do!' by Michael Braun. It doesn't seem to be stocked in a lot of...

An interview with author Terri White about her memoir 'Coming Undone'. Here is a link to buy Terri's book: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/coming-undone-a-memoir/9781786896810 Terri also recommended 'Into the Woods' by John Yorke. You can buy that here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/into-the-woods-how-stories-work-and-why-we-tell-them/9780141978109