A books podcast made by readers
Welcome to The Book Club Review, the independent podcast about the books that get people talking, hosted by Kate and Laura. From literary prize shortlists to book club favourites we’re always on the hunt for those books that provoke conversations, the ones we can’t wait to share, the ones perfect for book club. With our cast of regular and special guests, we promise you honest opinions and lively debate. As featured in Vogue, Stylist, the iPaper, Waitrose Weekend and BBC Radio 5 Live. Listen via your favourite podcast player or browse our archive for back episodes full of book recommendations. If you want to find your way to some really good books, there’s no better place to start. Wondering if we’ve covered one of your favourites? Type the title into the search tab to find out.
Just out, listen to our most recent episode
What makes a bestseller? Is it the quality of the writing, or just the right book at the right time? This week Kate is joined by co-host Laura Potter and returning guest Phil Chaffee to find out. Listen here or head to the episode page for full shownotes.
New Year, new intentions. Find the right book with Bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for the booklist and full shownotes.
We’re celebrating the end of the year with a look back over our favourite reads of 2025. With Phil Chaffee and Sarah Oliver. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for the booklist and full shownotes.
Explore this year’s Booker Prize shortlist on episode #182 of the Book Club Review! Hosts Kate and Laura are joined by contributors Phil Chaffee and Martin Vovk to discuss and debate the six shortlisted novels, plus hear our live reaction to the winner’s announcement. Head to the episode page for the booklist and shownotes.
Keep up with the pod between episodes
Reviews, recommendations and more.
This week’s Reading Diaries • The Secret of Secrets, cafe curtains, the Prague sex museum, the pleasures of a lobster pot, the Giant Irish Elk, Big Kiss, Bye-Bye, how to spell ‘evaporate’ and an October release I’m excited about.
Sunday bookstack • THE SECRET OF SECRETS by Dan Brown, THE HAPPY YEARS DIARIES 1944-48 by Cecil Beaton, THE ROY STRONG DIARIES 1967-1987, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO and BIG KISS, BYE BYE by Claire-Louise Bennett
🎧📚 NEW EPISODE • New year feeling more bleak than brilliant? How about a reading reset. In our latest episode, I met up with bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud @infinite.bibliotherapy_in her beautiful art studio to talk about those problems that vex every reader: how to find more time to read, how to beat reading slumps and how to read more deeply without it all starting to feel like homework.
Listen in for loads of great reading recommendations, plus some ideas to help you feel more inspired about reading those books already waiting on your shelves.
Featuring 📚 The Novel Cure by @infinite.ellaberthoud (@canongatebooks) 📚 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (@hutchheinnemann) 📚 Cursed Daughters by @oyinkan.braithwaite @oyinbraithwaite (@atlanticbooks) 📚 The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (@williamcollinsbooks) 📚 A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale @trevilley (@tinder_press) 📚 Metamorphoses by Ovid (@penguinclassics) 📚 Look Closer by @robertdouglasfairhurst (@penguinukbooks) 📚 A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter (@pushkinpress) 📚 Dálvi by @authorlauragalloway (@allenandunwin) 📚 The Artist by @lucysteeds (@johnmurrays) 📚 The Hounding by @xenobepurvis (@hutchheinnemann) 📚 Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo @xiaolu_impressions (@chattobooks @vintagebooks) - and many more!
Out now wherever you get your pods or at the link in the bio 🎧
#bookrecommendations #bibliotherapy #readinglist #bookpodcast #newyearreading whattoread
SUNDAY BOOKSTACK • Sun 11th February • MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME by Arundhati Roy, NONESUCH by Francis Spufford, BIG KISS, BYE-BYE by Claire Louise Bennett, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas and THE NOVEL CURE by @infinite.ellaberthoud and Susan Elderkin
Next episode of the pod #186, featuring Ella and all kinds of good ideas for beating the January blues and busting reading slumps plus some brilliant book recommendations - out tomorrow.
Upcoming • NONESUCH, the new novel from Francis Spufford. @faberbooks
NONESUCH is set in London during World War 2 and we meet Iris Hawkins, a young woman who works as a secretary in a city bank but dreams of becoming an investor herself – a career path that as a woman is completely closed to her. But Iris is no ordinary young woman, she’s smart and resourceful, and looking for opportunity. And it’s a time of change as war is coming. She meets Geoff who works in television at the BBC. She also meets Geoff’s father who turns out to be connected with a battle that is being fought along supernatural lines. As the blurb says
BOOK
‘soon there are Nazi planes overhead. But Iris has more to contend with than the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, in the twisted passages between past and present, a fascist fanatic is travelling with a gun in her hand. And only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever.’
If you love Francis Spufford’s writing this will not disappoint – I think he gets better and better with every book, and that’s saying something because Golden Hill was so great. The characters are vivid, London is brilliantly evoked, it feels like a novel that touches all the senses, you can really lose yourself in it. It has something of the magic of children’s stories about it, but in a firmly grown-up setting. If you like Phillip Pullman I think you’ll love this, and he also does something else I love which is this sense of something ineffable, spiritual, the meaning hidden away behind ordinary moments, the mystery and magic.
I was so lucky I got to read it over Christmas, because there’s one scene in a church with carols sung by candlelight that seemed to me one of the most perfect things I’d ever read.
My husband’s grandfather lived to 104 and he said the secret to a long life was you always had to have something to look forward to. So I give you Nonesuch which is out here in the UK on February 26th. I hope you love it as much as I did.
#nonesuch #francisspufford #bookspodcast #bookpodcast #bestbooksof2026
A year of brilliant book conversations • Thank you to everyone who listened, commented, shared your own book recommendations and inspired me again and again with your enthusiasm for books and reading.
If you’re new here, The Book Club Review is a podcast made by readers for readers. You’ll hear book discussions, recommendations and honest opinions about the books we cover, with a regular cast of guests, sometimes from the book industry, more often simply people who love reading books and want to talk about them. Episodes come out every two weeks or so, subscribe in your podcast app so you’ll never miss one.
If you want even more book chat there are bonus subscriber-only episodes on Patreon where I (Kate) dive deeper into recommendations, behind-the-scenes conversations and more. There’s also a monthly book club, and a brilliant community of readers busy swapping recommendations in the chat. Plus if The Count of Monte Cristo has always been on your want-to-read list come and join us as we read it together this spring. Check the link in the bio for all the details and how to sign up.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to connect with me on here. I hope you enjoy the pod. Here’s to all the shows I’m excited to make in 2026 and I wish you all very happy reading. Kate x
#bookpodcast #bookspodcast #books2025 #yearinbooks #whattoread
🫛📚🎄❤️ BEST OF THE YEAR episode, out now • Link in bio • We’re celebrating the end of the year with a look back over our favourite reads of 2025, from new releases to backlist gems, best book club books, best non-fiction, best comfort reads and more. Between us we read over 350 books in 2025. Listen in to hear the ones we loved best. We’ve also got a radical new idea for a book club involving cold-water swimming and the works of Robert B. Parker, and how to embrace DNFing without guilt. Join us for recommendations to see you through the festive season and set your new reading year off in style.
Booklist
Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
Crudo by Olivia Laing
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngoze Adiche
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Lake Shore by Gary Shteyngart
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm
The First Man by Albert Camus
Robert B. Parker novels
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Muybridge by Guy Delisle
The Sense & Sensibility Diaries by Emma Thompson
The Lockwood & Co novels by Jonathan Stroud
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower
Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple
Maurice and Marilyn, or A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhurst
Agent Zo by Clare Mulley
The Devil Two Step by Jamie Quattro
Train Dreams by Denis Johnston
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnston
The Director by Daniel Kelman
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
How to End a Story by Helen Garner (3 volume diaries collection)
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
This House of Grief by Helen Garner
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
#bookspodcast #bookpodcast #readingyearinreview #bookclubpodcast #bestbooksof2025
When you’ve never read Agatha Christie before and you decide to make a start with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and who knew, it turns out to be a total delight with a murder in the study with a candlestick - ok, a knife - but you realise every crime novel you’ve ever read has echoes of this like when you read Proust and realise it’s the source of everything - and also various suspects, a suspicious butler and a certain Mr Porrott busy growing marrows next door. It’s all so much fun and just like when you finally got around to watching Fleabag eight years after everyone else and had your own personal epiphany because no-one else cared at that point, so now you’re wondering why on earth it took you so long to get around to Agatha Christie. As imported from a bouquiniste by the Seine because when in Paris…
More recent episodes
Kate and Laura swap notes on their Autumn reading, while gearing up to dive into the Booker Prize shortlist. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Kate and Laura dive into two recent book club reads, Universality by Natasha Brown and Sparks of Bright Matter by Leeanne O’Donnell. Did they make for good book club books? Plus recent reads and we hear from a book club with a brilliant twist. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Kate and Joseph Dance discuss a favourite topic among literary aficionados, books that explore the world of books and reading. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Kate and Laura talk books in Seattle, including recent reads and bookshop favourites. Also featured, literary cocktails. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Join Kate in New York as she drinks cocktails and chats books with Christopher Hermelin of So Many Damn Books and Drew Broussard of The Lit Hub Podcast. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Inspired by the recent Apple adaptation of Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, we’re diving in to all things book to TV and film. Find out our favourites, plus we hear from Philippa Donovan, literary scout, who gives us the inside track on what it takes for a book to succeed on the screen. Listen via the media player below or head to the episode page for full shownotes and a transcript.
Daisy Buchanan joins Kate to explore the healing power of books and reading to inspire, comfort and fortify – and generally bring us joy Listen here or head to the episode page for full show notes.
With New Year’s resolutions still in mind it’s the perfect time to step into a world of philosophical musings and practical wisdom with Oliver Burkeman. Meditations for Mortals is his latest book designed as a four-week mental retreat, promising to help readers lead a ‘saner, freer, and more enchantment-filled life’. He joins Kate to discuss it. Listen here or head to the episode page for full show notes.
Join Kate, Sarah, Phil and Laura as they consider the NYT’s Best Books of the 21st Century list, and come up with a Book Club Review Top 20 picking up on the ones they think were overlooked. Listen in to find out if they’ve picked any of your favourites. Listen here or head to the episode page for full show notes.
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Discussion, debate, even a little dispute
Every month we bring you a new episode. That could be Book Club where we chat about the book read most recently by one of our book clubs. An interview with a book club, bookshop or book lover. Or Bookshelf, an episode dedicated to the books we’re reading outside of book club – the ones we get to pick and choose.