The Ghost Story Book Club

In  our 2025 Christmas Special -  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Mike Muncer in this episode (recorded live on Zoom on 9 December 2025) as we discuss two classic BBC Ghost Story for Christmas films, 'Stigma' (1974) and 'Number 13' (2006) Mike Muncer  is the host and creator of  The Evolution of Horror , a weekly podcast in which he explores the history of the horror genre by delving...

In  Series 5, Episode 10  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Jenn Ashworth, as we discuss 'The Breakthrough' by Daphne Du Maurier. Jenn Ashworth was born in Preston and studied at Cambridge and Manchester. Her novels include Ghosted: A Love Story , A Kind of Intimacy, The Friday Gospels and Fell . She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. In 2019 she published No...

In  Series 5, Episode 9 join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Dr Emily Vincent , as we discuss 'Playing with Fire' by Arthur Conan Doyle. Dr Emily Vincent is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in English Literature at the University of Birmingham. As part of the  Media and Epidemics  project, Emily is co-writing a book on imaginative representations of influenza in nineteenth- and twentieth-centu...

In this BONUS episode, I'm inviting you to join us for the live-streamed Christmas Special of The Ghost Story Book Club on Tuesday 9 December. Book your place here: http://gsbcxmas2025.eventbrite.com/   My guest will be Mike Muncer  (The Evolution of Horror ) and we'll be discussing the classic BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas films  Stigma  (1977) and the M.R. James adaptation,  Number 13  (2006)....

In  Series 5, Episode 8  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Leon Craig , as we discuss 'A Wicked Voice' by Vernon Lee. Leon Craig is the author of gothic short story collection  Parallel Hell s and queer haunted house novel  The Decadence  (both Sceptre UK) .  Her work has been published in  Hazlitt , the  London Magazine , the  TLS  and elsewhere. Leon is from London but now lives in Be...

In  Series 5, Episode 7  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Brontë Schiltz, as we discuss 'A Wicked Voice' by Vernon Lee. Brontë Schiltz is a writer, journalist and PhD candidate researching the Televisual Gothic at Manchester Metropolitan University's Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. Her creative work has been published in Hungry Ghost Magazine, Olney Magazine and Lotus-Eater Magazin...

In  Series 5, Episode 6  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , for a LIVE episode of the podcast, recorded at The Dukes, Lancaster, on Tuesday 28 October 2025, as part of their 'Spooked' festival.  I was joined on stage, after a screening of Night of the Demon  (1957), by writer and academic researcher Brontë Schiltz and academic, writer and poet Professor Catherine Spooner for a discussion about the film...

In  Series 5, Episode 5  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Adam Farrer as we discuss  'In the Tube'  by  E.F. Benson. Adam Farrer is a writer, lecturer, mentor and editor based in Manchester, UK. His debut essay collection, Cold Fish Soup (Saraband, 2022), won the NorthBound Book Award and the follow-up, Broken Biscuits and Other Male Failures , was published in the UK by HarperNorth in F...

In  Series 5, Episode 4  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Andrew Michael Hurley, as we discuss 'A View from a Hill' by M.R. James. Andrew Michael Hurley's first novel, The Loney , was originally published by Tartarus Press as a 300-copy limited-edition, before being republished by John Murray. It went on to sell in twenty languages, win the Costa Best First Novel Award and Book of the Ye...

In  Series 5, Episode 3  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Evelyn Hollow as we discuss 'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson. Evelyn Hollow is a Scottish writer and paranormal psychologist. She was a resident author at  Esoterica Zine   for several years, was the recipient of the 2015 Lonely Planet Travel Writing Scholarship, the occult columnist for Corvid Culture, has writte...

In  Series 5, Episode 2  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Colin Walsh as we discuss 'Don't Look Now' by Daphne Du Maurier. Colin Walsh 's short stories have won several awards including the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Prize and the Hennessy Literary Award. In 2019 he was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year. His writing has been published in the Stinging Fly, the Irish Times...

In  Series 5, Episode 1  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Julia Armfield as we discuss 'Honeysuckle Cottage' by P.G. Wodehouse. Julia Armfield  is a fiction writer, living in London. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review Short Story Prize 2018 and a Pushcart Prize in...

The Ghost Story Book Club rises from the dead! Series 5 begins Wednesday 8 October. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!   Come and see me on tour... dates, venues and tickets here.   Join us on Bluesky @ghoststorybookclub Join our Facebook Group facebook.com/groups/theghoststorybookclub/  Support us on Patreon  

In the second of our 2024 Christmas Specials -  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guests Jenn Ashworth (author of Ghosted, A Kind of Intimacy and Fell ) and Andrew Michael Hurley (author of The Loney , Starve Ac r e and Barrowbeck ). We discussed three ghost stories for Christmas:  Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper The Glamour of the Snow by Algernon Blackwood Don't Tell Cissy by C...

In the first of our 2024 Christmas Specials -  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Mike Muncer in this episode (recorded live on Zoom on 11 December 2024) as we discuss two classic BBC Ghost Story for Christmas films, 'The Signalman' (1976) and 'A View From a Hill' (2005). Mike Muncer  is the host and creator of  The Evolution of Horror , a weekly podcast in which he explores the history...

In  Series 4, Episode 11 - our Christmas Special -  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Mike Muncer in this episode (recorded live on Zoom on 7 December 2023) as we discuss two class Ghost Story for Christmas films, 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas' (1974) and ' The Ash Tree' (1975) Mike Muncer  is the host and creator of  The Evolution of Horror , a weekly podcast in which he explores the h...

In  Series 4, Episode 10  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , as I count down ten of my favourite Ghost Stories for Christmas! What are your favourites? Tell me on Twitter and Facebook . 

In  Series 4, Episode 9  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest,  Nathan Ballingrud   as we discuss  'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford Nathan Ballingrud is the author of The Strange, Wounds : Six Stories from the Border of Hell , and North American Lake Monsters , which won the Shirley Jackson Award. A novella, Crypt of the Moon Spider , will appear in 2024. He has been shortlisted for th...

In Series 4, Episode 8  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Naomi Ryan as we discuss 'Martin's Close' by M.R. James Naomi Ryan is a barrister. After completing the BCL at St Catherine's College, Oxford, she taught criminal law to undergraduates at St Hilda's College Oxford and University College London before embarking on her career as a criminal barrister. She both prosecuted and defende...

In  Series 4, Episode 7  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Leon Craig as we discuss ' Berenice ' by Edgar Allan Poe Leon   Craig   is a writer and editor from London, now based in Berlin. Her gothic short story collection  Parallel Hells  was published by Sceptre Books and she is currently working on her first novel.  Leon 's fiction has also appeared in the  White Review , the  London...

Welcome to this special bonus LIVE episode of The Ghost Story Book Club! Join me (Adam Z. Robinson), Gothic expert and award-winning writer Professor Catherine Spooner and novellist Andrew Michael Hurley for this post-screening discussion of The Woman in Black (1989 TV film adaptation) which was recorded LIVE at The Dukes, Lancaster, on Saturday 28 October 2023 as part of the Dark Dukes festival....

In  Series 4, Episode 5  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest,  Dr. Emily Vincent  as we discuss  'The Giant Wistaria' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Dr  Emily   Vincent   is a Deputy Associate Director of Research and an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies International, based at Durham University.  Emily  holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Birmi...

In  Series 4, Episode 4  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson ,  and my guest, Caroline Bird as we discuss  'The Striding Place' by Gertrude Atherton. Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. Her most recent collection,  The Air Year , won the Forward Prize for Poetry and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Prize and the Polari Prize. Her previous collections include  In These Days of Prohibition , which wa...

In  Series 4, Episode 3  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Kirsty Logan as we discuss 'The Hated House' by Celia Fremlin. Kirsty Logan's latest novel is  Now She is Witch (Harvill Secker, 2023), a queer medieval witch revenge quest. Her memoir The Unfamiliar (Virago, 2023), a memoir of queer pregnancy and parenthood is out now. She is also the author of two previous novels, three story co...

In Series 4, Episode 2  join me,  Adam Z. Robinson , and my guest, Will Maclean as we discuss  'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by M.R. James. Will Maclean is a writer and the author of the novel  The Apparition Phase. He's written for television professionally since 2006, during which time he's worked as a scriptwriter for people as varied as Alexander Armstrong, Miranda Hart, Al Murra...