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.
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Kate is joined by Phil Chaffee, Elizabeth Eva Leach and Charlotte Kearsley to consider the books that made the Booker longlist, but which didn’t make the final shortlist. Which are the best of the rest? Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
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Novellas are on the agenda as Kate and Laura report back on what their book clubs thought of Transcription by Ben Lerner and Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, plus their recent reads and recommendations. Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
It’s the end of summer, so Kate and Laura are looking back over their holiday reading, the books they loved, the ones that disappointed them, and the unexpected discoveries that made their reading lists longer rather than shorter. Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
The best summer reads? Kate is joined by Laura and Phil to rate books from summer reading lists chosen by The New York Times, The Times, Lit Hub and The Booker Prize as beach reads, suitcase books or airport leave-behinds. Plus the books we have packed for ourselves. Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
Discover the hidden stories inside secondhand books as Kate talks to W. B. Gooderham, author of Dedicated To, and celebrates the joy of book hunting. Kate and Laura are also sharing their favourite places to shop secondhand, and some of their most treasured discoveries. Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
When the Guardian newspaper drops a list of the 100 Best Novels of All Time it’s time to drop everything to talk about it. Pod-regular guest, journalist Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance, host of the Curious Readers podcast, join Kate to discuss the hits and misses of the list. Listen in the media player above or head to the episode page for full shownotes and book links.
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.
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Reviews, recommendations and more.
2026 Booker winner The End of Everything, a hot take
NEW EPISODE • THE BOOKER LONGLIST • Not just one book today, but a whole longlist of 13 – and a new podcast episode to go with them. When the Booker Prize shortlist is announced, and eventually the winner crowned, it’s easy for the other books on the longlist to slip from view. But these are thirteen books that have been chosen from a list of 163 to represent the best in fiction right now, and we don’t want miss out on them. In this episode, part one of our two-part Booker extravaganza, I’m joined by Phil, Elizabeth and Charlotte, three super-readers who’ve read all thirteen books. We’re discussing and debating the seven that didn’t make the final shortlist. Which were our standouts? Which surprised us, challenged us, or would make for the best book club reads? And if, oh time-poor reader, you only have time to read one and want to know the best of the rest, which book gets our vote? (As a sneak peek in case you don’t have time to listen I can tell you there was a wave of appreciation for The Renovation by Kenan Orhan.) This is the first part of our Booker double-header, with a companion episode devoted to the shortlist and winner.
It’s out now wherever you get your pods, or find it at the link in the bio.
#bookerprize #bookpodcast #bookrecommendations #whattoreadnext
‘The first 30,000 pots are the worst’ Edmund de Waal was told when he began his apprenticeship as a potter. HOW TO BEGIN is his new book, launched at The Conway Hall in Bloomsbury the other night. The room was packed out with people who had come to hear him and Max Porter trying to answer the question of how to live a creative life. How to Begin is a book about Edmund de Waal’s grandmother Elizabeth, and her correspondence with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. It’s about the nature of letter writing, and what is passed on. It’s about poetry – I believe you can live in a book of poems’ Elizabeth wrote to Rilke, ’It is the only kind of home that you cannot do without in this life.’ And it’s about de Waal’s own apprenticeship, his learning to begin, to come to terms with failure, and of learning to listen to that inner voice that has guided him throughout his life to make art, whether in the form of pots, or exhibitions, or books. As you’d expect, the book is also a beautiful object, printed on paper that has the bluish tinge of porcelain. As for reading it, I can’t wait to begin.
@chattobooks @edmunddewaal #howtobegin #bookrecommendations #memoir #poetry
I love, love, loved the new Agatha Christie exhibition at the British Library, and accompanying catalogue. I was so impressed at the way every detail had been so carefully considered. You come away with so many different impressions of her. Her writing career is documented with brilliant behind-the-scenes notes and letters - I loved, for example, an exchange she had with a lawyer on a technical point relating to inheritance law. He had got in touch to point out the error only to have to later write to acknowledgment that she had got the reference exactly correct. She was a thorough researcher and double-checked everything before her books went to print. You also get a sense of her lifestyle, her house, car, typewriter, surfboard and general air of joie-de-vivre except for that one famous episode when she mysteriously vanished that is only lightly touched on here. There’s even a crime for you to try to solve as you make your way through the show - I managed it with the help of my 15-year old daughter, a far better detective than I. The exhibition catalogue allows you to take the magic home with you and I can’t imagine a better thing to have on your shelf next to your favourite Christie novels. Thus far I’ve only read THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, which I enjoyed, but I’m now inspired to offset all my current Booker reading with a few more. Which should I read next?
@bl_publishing @britishlibrary #agathachristie #crimewriting #whattodoinlondon
It’s the time of the Frieze art fair here in London, my annual dip into the strange and wonderful world of contemporary art. If you’re in the mood for some weird and wonderful fiction to go with your art today’s recommendation is THE EMPLOYEES, a short intriguing novel from Danish author Olga Ravn, brilliantly translated by Martin Aitken. Everything about it raises questions, from the orange rectangle hiding the title (why is there a rectangle? Why is it hiding the title?) to the novel itself, which consists of a series of statements made by employees on a spaceship some time in the 22nd century. Some are human, some humanoid, and they have responsibility for caring for some type of strange objects, possibly creatures, that are never clearly defined, but evoke strong feelings in all of them. Fellow author Mark Haddon calls the book ‘a tantalising puzzle you can never quite solve’, but for all that it’s full of moments of warmth, humour, and curiosity about what it means to be alive. I particularly love this one for a book club discussion, and it’s also great if your mind has just been expanded by an overload of contemporary art.
#friezelondon #internationalbookerprizeshortlist #greatshortbooks #butisitart
@lollieditions
Book of the day • SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE by Lorrie Moore 📕 If you’re going to be influenced by someone should that person be the chief executive of the Booker Foundation? I confess to a mild-girl crush on Gaby Wood, she’s everything I want my literary world icons to be. Recently she posted a snap of this book, SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE, an essay collection from Lorrie Moore, whose novel WHO WILL RUN THE FROG HOSPITAL (1994) was so brilliant, it’s one of the all-time-great coming-of-age novels. But not only had I not got around to reading any of Moore’s other fiction, I didn’t know anything about her non-fiction writing and so, intrigued, I duly ordered this up. Reader, I am loving it. Moore writes in a way that is engaging, thoughtful and lucid. Essays cover the great and good of the modern literary pantheon with the odd foray into tv and film. The collection opens with Norah Ephron’s autobiographical novel HEARTBURN, and begins ‘Norah Ephron, whose name sounds like a neurotransmitter or a sinus medication, and who has made a reputation for herself with snappy, journalistic essays, is now, with the publication of Hearburn, a novelist with a vengeance.’ Looking at the real-life drama that lay behind the book, Moore concludes that the success of Ephron’s novel as art depends on its ineffectuality as revenge. HEARTBURN, by the way, in addition to WHO WILL RUN THE FROG HOSPITAL, is another great book recommendation if you haven’t got to it yet. Which brings me to the other thing I love about this collection, how generative it is, leading you to want to revisit old favourites or make new discoveries. And so, to return to my original question before I get too lost in the weeds the answer is yes, you absolutely should allow yourself to be influenced by Gaby Wood, for, of course, she has excellent taste in books.
#lorriemoore #seewhatcanbedone #reviewsandcriticism #bookpodcast
Book of the day • A YEAR AT THE PARSONAGE by Pen Pentreath and Charlie McCormick. If you don’t follow architect and designer Ben Pentreath, co-proprietor of the glorious shop Pentreath & Hall and champion of traditional English heritage then do seek him out because you are in for a treat. I had a treat in the post today, my pre-order of his new book A Year at the Parsonage. This beautiful volume tells the story of the rented house in Dorset he shared with his partner Charlie McCormick, and captures the last year of their time living there. Charlie McCormick is a talented gardener and surrounded the house with a profusion of flowers and vegetables. The book is full of gorgeous pictures illustrating evocative writing from Ben, and also Charlie (who I’m not used to reading, so this felt like an especial treat), which is always just the thing to take me out of my own humdrum life and into their way of seeing the world. A book like this feels like sharing in the best way, not in an ‘admire / envy my lifestyle’, but a capturing of the love they both had for the home they created together, and allowing us, the readers, to share in their joy. They subsequently moved to the island of Rousay, off Orkney in Scotland, where I am eagerly following their continuing adventures as they build a new life in an even more amazing house, up there. I love this book and recommend it for those moments when you just want to step out of your own shoes for a bit, and into someone else’s.
#ayearattheparsonage #benpentreath #charliemccormick #beautifulbooks @quadrillebooks
Book of the day is a book I have not read yet, and that is BLACK BAG by Luke Kennard. I just started it because it is shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize and it’s time for me to stop procrastinating and get into it. It’s about a penniless out-of-work actor who picks up a job working for a psychology professor conducting an experiment. His role is to attend lectures like a normal student with the stipulation that he will always be completely concealed by an oversized bag. How will people react? It’s described as a warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story. In addition to being a published poet Luke Kennard also lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, so I imagine he knows a thing or two about campuses. The first line is promising: ‘If you met anyone as whiny, as disobliging and egocentric as the average narrator of a novel in real life you’d find them unbearable.’ The Booker judges said ‘This of-the-moment satire considers anonymity and disgust, online rackets, and what it means to find love in our unstable times. We admired its sharply crafted sentences and humour.’ What will I think of it? I’m looking forward to finding out.
#blackbag #bookerprize2026 #bookershortlist #campusnovelbooks #zadiesmithisafan @thebookerprizes
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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.