The Book Club Review

From no formal education before the age of seventeen to a PhD from Cambridge ten years later, Tara Westover's transformation is the stuff of Hollywood. And that's before you learn about the violence and brainwashing that tainted her upbringing within her Mormon survivalist family. Westover's 'remarkable memoir' made Barack Obama's summer reading list. But what did Laura's book club make of it? Lis...

A Far Cry From Kensington has many fans amongst the critics but what did Kate's book club make of it. Did they fall in love with Muriel Spark's genteel farce set in the postwar London publishing industry? Or did they need more convincing of Spark's genius. For an informed opinion we interview Hannah Griffin of the Spark Challenge Book Group, and find out what it's like being part of a book group w...

The New York Times called it a 'powerfully expansive novel' and it was shortlisted for the Booker, but what did Laura's book club make of 'Do Not Say We Have Nothing' by Madeleine Thien? For our regular book club interview we get radical with London's Radical Reading Group and we finish as always with some fresh recommendations for your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubrev...

We love books, we love book clubs, and so we created a show dedicated to both. We review the books read most recently by our own book clubs. We interview people about their book clubs to get tips and tricks. And finally we pull together great recommendations to make your next book club book your best yet. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art1...

It has been called her finest novel, but what did Laura's book club make of Zadie Smith's Swing Time? In our regular interview we talk to The Divas, a close-knit group of women based in north-west London, about books, friendship and travel. And we finish as always with some fresh recommendations for your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Insta...

East West Street is a memoir by prominent British barrister Philippe Sands. It's a history of atrocity combined with a relentless search for the truth, with Sands digging deep, into both his own family history and the legal framework that eventually brought Nazi war criminals to justice. Powerful stuff, but what did Kate's book club make of it? Did it make for a good book club read? Plus we talk t...

We find out what Kate's book club made of Dr Fischer of Geneva, or The Bomb Party, by Graham Greene. Published in 1980, at the end of Greene's life, this novella explores ideas of love, morality, good and evil, but did it strike any chords with our book club? Listen in to find out. In our regular interview we talked to Phil Chaffee about his intellectually hard-hitting book club, and the conversat...

Proustian mediatation on love and desire? Atmospheric beach read? What did Laura's book club make of André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name? First published in 2007 and recently made into an Oscar-nominated film, the story follows 17-year-old Elio's obsession with charismatic houseguest Oliver. But were we carried away by Aciman's evocation of one long passionate summer? Or did it leave us only with...

In which journalist Kat Brown tells us all about her Jilly Cooper book club, and we decide Jilly Cooper is essentially the same as Proust. Find out more about the Jilly Cooper bookclub using #jillybookclub on twitter or seek them out on facebook. Kat Brown can be contacted using @katbrown. Books mentioned on this episode: Rivals, Polo, Harriet and Octavia by Jilly Cooper War and Peace by Leo Tolst...

We debate Two Serious Ladies, a neglected 1940s 'cult' classic by Jane Bowles, and David Grossman's A Horse Walks Into A Bar, which won the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. They both come highly recommended and are purportedly funny. But did our book clubs agree? For our regular interview, we talk to Kat Brown about how she started the Jilly Cooper Book Club. • Follow us on Instagram and Faceb...

The Happy Reader special: a celebration of Penguin's magazine that thinks it's a book club, and a live book club discussion of their Winter Book of the Season, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. We interview editor Seb Emina who tells us the secrets of how the magazine is put together, and has some great ideas for how to get through the TBR pile including 'speed-dating for books', the perfect suggestion for...

It came highly recommended, and so with anticipation Kate's book club read All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West. We knew she was good at gardening, but what did we make of Sackville-West as a writer? Listen in to find out. In our regular interview we explore just how heated book discussions can get when you have a pair of knitting needles to hand, with London's Kniterati book club member Maeve...

For Laura's book club we delve into The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. Longlisted for the Booker Prize (2017), it didn't make the shortlist, but did it make for a good book club read? Meanwhile for fans of horror and Halloween enthusiasts alike we met up with Andy Russell of London's Horror Book Club to find out about the joys of being frightened by your book at bedtime. And we hav...

For Kate's most recent book club we set off for the high Himalayas in search of snow leopards and spiritual enlightenment with Peter Matthiessen's cult classic. But what did we make of it? Is it a 'man's book'? And did it make for good debate? Meanwhile our regular interview feature sees us in Paris interviewing Morgan Thomas of The American Library about his Proust book club. We end with the usua...

Laura's latest book club read was This Is London by Ben Judah (2016), a spare and unflinching investigation into what life in London can be like for the migrants who make up over 40% of the city's population. Not a gentle read, but a revealing one that frustrated and impressed in equal measure – a good formula for debate. For our regular interview, we spoke with Claire Griffiths who runs the book...

Lincoln in the Bardo is a ghostly story that unfolds in a graveyard over the course of a single night. Narrated by a chorus of voices and historical sources this innovative novel invites discussion, and won the Booker Prize in 2017. In this episode we find out what Kate's book club made of it. Were they baffled or bewitched by this multifarious cast of ghostly characters, and were they daunted by...

What did Laura's book club make of THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead, now a Pulitzer Prize and US National Book Award winner. We also discover a school whose library is in a specially converted London bus. Teacher Tom Milne tells us all about their school book club, and how they came up with the ultimate list of reading recommendations. • Books mentioned in this episode: The Underground...

In which Kate and Laura have wildly differing opinions over Kim Leine's historical novel The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (nominated for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award) but discover a shared distaste for the word 'greasy'. 'My front teeth are quite fallen out but for five that dangle like scoundrels of the night from a gallows' complains the main character, Morten Falck, as we follow hi...

In this episode Kate makes a serious confession, and we try to figure out if The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon is set in an avenue or a cul-de-sac. We also tackle the more important question of whether it made a good book club book. In our interview Kate is put through her paces on a windy Hampstead Heath chatting to Emily Rhodes about her Walking Book Club . We end with some recom...

This episode features a rare falling out between Kate and her book club over Margaret Atwood's latest novel, Hag-Seed , while Laura's book club appreciate the captivating travel memoir Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Bulgarian emigrée Kapka Kassabova. We also chat with Michael Waldman, a documentary film-maker who tells us about a book so good it made a long journey on the Trans-Siberia...

Can a sci-fi novel make for a good book club book? We find out with The Left-Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. Did Laura's book club, mostly sci-fi newbies, like it or loathe it? From fantasy dystopia to the real world, we also tackle Second-Hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich's history of life in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. It's an emotionally challenging read on a difficult subject. But did Kate...

We discuss South Korean author Han Kang's short novel about a troubled woman who decides to stop eating meat. We also look at international bestseller of yesteryear The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, which found fame in the author's native Germany before making its way onto Oprah Winfrey's book club list, and becoming an Oscar winning film starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. But twenty years on,...

In our first episode Kate's book club dive into Paul Beatty's 2016 Booker Prize winning novel THE SELLOUT while Laura's have been reading HILLBILLY ELEGY, Jack Vance's memoir of growing up poor in an Appalachian town. Does Vance's book explain the rise of Donald Trump, as many commentators claimed? Did The Sellout make us laugh, as the blurb promised it would? And did these two books make good boo...