The Book Club Review

Join us for this 'bookshelf' episode as we discuss the books we've been reading outside of book club. In this episode Kate gets tied up in existential knots over House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas and we consider the parallels between this 800-page fantasy bonkbuster and War and Peace. We explore the idea of 'reading offsetting' whereby we balance our guilty pleasures with books more worthy...

Bibliotherapist and author (with Susan Elderkin) of classic books about books The Novel Cure and The Story Cure , Ella Berthoud's most recent work is The Art of Mindful Reading , a practical guide that promises to help people to read more mindfully, bringing their lives to books and books into their lives equally. As you might expect we have a lot of book recommendations in this show, plus advice...

Join us as we discuss the 2020 Costa Book of the Year, The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey. 'A fishy tale of doomed womanhood', even Margaret Atwood got excited about it, tweeting 'Not your standard mermaid. No comb and glass, no Lorelei hair. No catch and release…' This unusual novel weaves together sex, misogny and race with love, music, magic and myth, plus it throws in a few spliffs,...

What is a reader's dream cookbook? One that has delicious recipes but also a wealth of literary references to inspire your next read? It turns out these books exist! With her Little Library series of cookbooks Kate Young has carved out a particular niche intertwining her love of food with the books that have inspired her and shaped her life. And so you might find a recipe for French Toast inspired...

On the one hand 'bleak, meandering and depressing' on the other a beautifully written book that has touched the hearts of its readers – but what did Kate's book club make of Douglas Stuart's 2020 Booker winner Shuggie Bain? We're joined by friend and journalist Phil Chaffee to discuss it. Has Laura managed to make it through more than the first sixty pages? Listen in to find out, plus our usual re...

Catch up on what we've been reading outside of book club, the books we choose for ourselves. If you're looking for lockdown recommendations we've got a couple of brilliant suggestions here we think you'll love, plus one book we can save you the time of having to read. We also talk upcoming reads and our newly launched Bookshop on Bookshop.org.uk Booklist: Intimations by Zadie Smith A Start in Life...

We're welcoming in a new year of reading with not one but two books, Writers & Lovers by Lily King, and Early Work by Andrew Martin. Two aspiring writers, two messy love lives, two very different books that each take the craft of writing as their main theme, one from the female perspective and one from the male. How did they compare? What did Laura's book club make of them? Should they be on y...

A book sent from friend to friend around the world, with a notebook full of comments. Have we found the perfect Covid lockdown bookclub? We're joined by podcaster and books blogger Simon Thomas who explains how it works. We also get some wonderful book recommendations from authors you may not have read or even heard of, and catch up about his Book of the Year club (in which all the books read come...

It's our biggest recommendations show yet, with over 50 books loved by us, our book clubs, and our three special guests. But what were our most loved reads of 2020? Listen in for our top threes and our absolute favourites. There were some obvious contenders such as Maggie O'Farrell's Hamlet and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, but we've tried to steer clear of the main current to pick out some sligh...

Feeling quizzical? Missing your favourite festive pub quiz? Compete along with us as Gary Wigglesworth, author of 'The Book Lover's Quiz Book', puts us through our literary paces in another seasonal special. Will you beat us? For detailed show notes and links to all the podcasts we've mentioned today, visit our website thebookclubreview.co.uk . In the UK and Australia, you can order a copy of The...

We look back over the ten books we read for bookclub in 2020. From Taffy Brodesser-Akner's snappy take on contemporary relationships with Fleishman is in Trouble, to The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa's carefully considered look at memory and the objects that bring meaning to our lives, we read and discussed a wide range of books that we're delighted to go back and revisit – like seeing old friends. Bu...

What's it like to set up your own publishing business? What does it take to succeed? And how do you find the right books? We talk to Kate Macdonald of Handheld Press, who gives us some behind-the-scenes insights into running a small, independent publishers, and her mission to seek out forgotten fiction and authors who need to be rediscovered. Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Anne Stafford Save...

We discuss The Memory Police , a haunting dystopian novel that explores questions of power, trauma and state surveillance written by Yoko Ogawa, one of Japan's leading contemporary novelists. Set on an unnamed island, the narrator of The Memory Police describes how every so often something in the inhabitants' lives will disappear. Birds, roses, books, one by one these things vanish overnight and t...

Wondering which of the Booker shortlisted novels to read? Look no further, we've got the rundown of all of them in our Booker Prize special. We're joined by previous podcast guests Phil Chaffee and Sarah Oliver to discuss the six titles. Due to Covid we weren't able to be in the same room, but that didn't hold us back. It's book club, so whether we loved them or loathed them, you'll get to hear wh...

The perfect solution when your book club wants to read a classic, but no-one quite has the energy for the 19th-century greats, Bonjour Tristesse clocks in at just over 100 pages and was written by Françoise Sagan when she was only a teenager. It became an instant bestseller in France, and subsequently around the world, and has remained a hugely popular read ever since. What did Kate's book club ma...

Our bookshelf episodes are the ones where we get to let our hair down and talk about the things we're reading outside of our book clubs, the books that we get to pick and choose. So listen in as Kate is bewitched by the new Susanna Clarke novel Piranesi, charmed by Shirley Jackson's memoir of raising her children in Life Among the Savages, and has a guilty confession to make about To Calais in Ord...

Identical twin sisters Stella and Desiree Vignes grow up together in a small, southern black community where the inhabitants have noteably light skin. When they run away at the age sixteen they make very different choices. One will marry and then return to her hometown, the other will live her life passing for white, knowing she can never go back. What will happen, though, when the next generation...

More than ever as we gradually emerge from lockdown we find ourselves appreciating the natural world and the joys of walking. The perfect time then to revisit our interview with Emily's Walking Book Club to hear about the inherent pleasures of walking and talking about books. And picking up on the theme we have some handpicked recommendations for you, perfect for topping up your TBR pile. From pas...

In real life, Bill Clinton asked Hillary Rodham to marry him three times before she finally said yes. The rest is history. But in Sittenfeld's alternative world, Hillary says no, and their lives diverge from there. Hillary is alone and heartbroken, but she's also free to pursue her own political ambitions – and free from the humiliating sexual scandals that will plague Bill's political career. Sit...

'Beach read', 'holiday read', 'summer read'. This year there's another term in the mix: the 'stay-cation read'. But whatever you call it, for us summer reading is all about choice. Reading what you want. Not reading what you should. So, what do YOU feel like reading? Well, we're here to help you decide. Speed read. Comforting classic. Wish fulfillment romance. Genre-bending Whodunnit. Rollicking h...

It's a summer sizzler of a Bookshelf with rave reviews from both Laura and Kate for their eclectic books of choice. For Kate, it's all about hot contemporary reads, including Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House , an eye-opening memoir about an abusive lesbian relationship. Whereas Laura's enchanted by the African adventures of 1930s aviatrix Beryl Markham, and dazzled by William Melvin Kelle...

The short story. Sad sister to the novel? Or pinnacle of the literary form? In this episode, Laura sets out to persuade Kate, self-professed short story sceptic, she's got it all wrong. Since the Covid Crisis went global, Laura's book club has been working their way through That Glimpse of Truth: 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Written selected by the late literary agent David Miller. One sho...

In honour of National Reading Group Day and World Refugee Day, we discuss The Beekeeper of Aleppo, the bestselling novel by Christy Lefteri. It's a heartrending and important novel. The story of Nuri and Afra, a devastated couple forced to flee their home in Aleppo in the hopes of reaching safety in the UK. Harrowing and haunting, it's a must read. But did it make for a good discussion book? Is th...

We cross the Atlantic to catch up with Claire Handscombe, presenter and producer of BritLit , a fortnightly podcast that tracks what's going on in the British publishing world. We talk about Claire's novel Unscripted , which she highly recommends as a beach read, whether you're able to go to an actual beach or just have to make do with a deckchair in your garden. Claire also gives us a shelf's wor...

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a publishing phenomenon: a debut novel that has sold more print copies in 2019 than any other adult title, fiction or non-fiction. Appropriately, given our current Corona lockdown situation, it's a book about a girl who lives isolated in the wilderness, wrestling with loneliness. The plot draws together romance, crime and a courtroom drama building to a su...