Tom's Book Club

What does a literary critic actually do? How are books chosen for review? And do reviews still matter in the age of Goodreads, BookTok and social media? In this special Behind The Books episode of Tom's Book Club, Tom speaks to Laura Hackett, Deputy Literary Editor and Fiction Editor at The Times and The Sunday Times, about life as one of Britain's leading litera...

Bestselling author Dave Eggers joins Tom's Book Club to discuss his new novel, Contrapposto. Spanning almost seven decades, Contrapposto follows Cricket and Olympia, two friends united by a love of art and a belief that they can change the world. In this wide-ranging conversation, Dave Eggers discusses creativity, the power of art, the parallels between painting...

Bobby Palmer joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss his new novel Main Characters, an ambitious love story told entirely through the eyes of friends, family, flatmates and strangers. In this episode, Bobby discusses the inspiration behind Main Characters, why he had wanted to write a love story for many years, and how he approached telling a relationship entirely through the perspectives of ot...

Bestselling novelist and President of the Royal Society of Literature Elif Shafak discusses literature, storytelling and the writing life. In this wide-ranging conversation, Elif reflects on the books that have guided her through difficult times, growing up between cultures, writing in both English and Turkish, and why stories can cross borders more easily than people can. She discusses her acclai...

Women's Prize-winning author and palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke joins Tom's Book Club to discuss The Story of a Heart, the book that won the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. Following the announcement of this year's Women's Prize winners, we're revisiting this conversation with Rachel about the extraordinary true story of Keira, a young girl whose donated heart saved another child's life....

In the first episode of Behind The Books, a new series exploring the people and professions that shape the literary world, Tom is joined by independent bookseller Katie Clapham. Katie is the co-owner of Storytellers Inc. and the author of Receipts from the Bookshop, a diary of a year spent running a bookshop on the Lancashire coast. Released to coincide with Independent Bookshop Week, this convers...

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer discusses his new novel, Villa Coco. Set in the Tuscan countryside, the novel follows a young American who finds himself working for an eccentric ninety-year-old Baronessa and drawn into a world of friendship, mystery and unexpected adventure. Andrew talks about the real-life experiences that inspired the book, writing comedy, creating memorable char...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Maggie O’Farrell discusses her new novel Land, a haunting historical novel set in post-Famine Ireland about memory, buried histories, family and survival. Maggie talks about the delayed train journey that first sparked the idea for the book, the real family history that informed the story, researching cartography and the Ordnance Survey, and writing a...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Alexander Starritt discusses his novel Drayton and Mackenzie, an ambitious and deeply human story about friendship, ambition, and the desire to leave a mark on the world. The novel follows James Drayton and Roland Mackenzie, two former university acquaintances whose very different paths through adulthood become unexpectedly entwined. Set agai...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Eric Puchner discusses his novel Dream State, an expansive story about love, friendship, and the decisions that shape a lifetime. The novel begins in Montana, where Cece arrives at her future in-laws’ lake house to prepare for her wedding to Charlie. But when Charlie’s oldest friend Garrett enters the picture, a single summer sets three lives...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Lucy Steeds discusses her debut novel The Artist, winner of both the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2025 and Waterstones Book of the Year 2025. Set in Provence in 1920, The Artist follows Ettie, a young woman living in the shadow of her uncle, the celebrated painter Edouard Tartuffe. When an ambitious journalist arri...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Liz Moore discusses her gripping novel The God of the Woods, shortlisted for the 2026 British Book Awards in the Crime & Thriller category. Set in a remote American summer camp, the novel begins with the disappearance of a teenage girl — fourteen years after her brother vanished in the same wilderness. As the search unfolds, lon...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Lily King discusses her novel Heart the Lover, now shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The novel follows a writer whose intense friendship with two magnetic figures in her youth continues to shape her life years later. Moving across time, Heart the Lover explores love in its many forms and the lasting impact of...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Yael van der Wouden discusses her debut novel The Safekeep, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025. Set in the Netherlands in the years after the Second World War, The Safekeep follows Isabel, whose ordered, solitary life is disrupted by the arrival of her brother’s enigmatic girlfriend. As the summer unfolds, desire, ten...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Brian Bilston discusses his latest book, How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside: An Alternative Guide to Writing and Enjoying Poetry. Known for his witty, widely shared verse, Brian reflects on the state of poetry in 2026, his decision to step away from Twitter, and why he has chosen to remain (semi) anonymous. The conversation also explores h...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Charlotte Runcie discusses her sharp and darkly funny debut novel Bring the House Down, which is the Indie Book of the Month pick for April. Set against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Fringe, the novel follows a notorious theatre critic whose scathing review sparks an unexpected and deeply personal act of revenge. As the story unfolds, what be...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Erin Somers discusses her incisive and incredibly funny novel The Ten Year Affair. The book follows Cora, a married mother who forms an instant connection with another parent at a baby group. Rather than act on it, she allows the relationship to unfold in her imagination, but as the fantasy deepens, it begins to reshape how she sees her own l...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, David Szalay discusses his 2025 Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh, a sweeping, provocative portrait of one man’s life shaped by desire, chance, and consequence. The novel follows István, a young boy growing up in Hungary in the late 1980s, whose life is irrevocably altered by a tragic youthful affair. From a quiet apartment block to the rarefi...

In this episode, Tom speaks to Claire Lynch about her powerful debut novel A Family Matter, a story that moves between two generations of the same family and explores love, secrecy, and the lasting consequences of the past. Set partly in 1982, the novel follows Dawn, a young wife and mother whose life changes when she forms a relationship that challenges the rigid expectations of the time. De...

Novelist and journalist John Lanchester joins Tom to discuss his new novel Look What You Made Me Do, a darkly comic story about marriage, resentment, and the unsettling power of storytelling. When a North London woman starts noticing the intimate details of her own marriage appearing in the year’s biggest TV drama, she begins to wonder who has betrayed her and who really owns a shar...

Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss his new novel Howl. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation, Jacobson explores the emotional and political landscape that shaped the book, set in the fraught aftermath of October 7th. The novel follows Ferdinand Draxler, a London headteacher struggling to make sense of a world, and a self, that suddenly feels unstab...

In this episode of Tom’s Book Club, Tom speaks to journalist and author Sophie Elmhirst about Maurice & Maralyn: A Whale, a Shipwreck, a Love Story, the remarkable true story that captured readers and critics alike. Winner of the Nero Gold Prize last year, Maurice & Maralyn is a gripping and deeply human work, exploring the extraordinary lives of a Britis...

Novelist Lee Cole joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss his novel Fulfillment, a sharp and quietly powerful story about family, class and the fault lines of contemporary American life. The novel follows half-brothers Emmett and Joel, who couldn’t be more different: Emmett is a single, blue-collar warehouse worker, while Joel is a married academic and published writer. When the two find t...

Writer and peacebuilding practitioner Dr Nussaibah Younis joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss her debut novel Fundamentally. The novel follows Nadia, an academic who escapes a painful breakup by taking a UN job in Iraq, where she’s tasked with helping to deradicalise ISIS brides. Amid the bureaucratic absurdity of aid work, she forms an unexpected bond with Sara, a young British woman...

Writer and foreign policy specialist Chloe Dalton joins Tom’s Book Club to talk about her debut book Raising Hare, a tender and unexpected story about caring for a wild leveret and the fragile bond between humans and nature. In this conversation, Dalton reflects on finding a newborn hare alone in the countryside and the experience of raising it by hand. She discusses attention, resp...