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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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.
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
Book of the day
Book of the Day is Knife by Salman Rushdie. On 12th August 2022 Salman Rushdie was on stage at the Chautauqua Festival in Upstate New York when he was attacked by a man with a knife. The book is the story of his recovery, and his attempt to understand the violence that was visited upon him that day. It’s also a look back over his life and career, a moment of taking stock. It’s a brilliant read, told in Rushdie’s inimitable style, addressing questions that will keep you thinking long after you finish. It’s also a book that was written from the heart. When we read the words of the best writers I think they enter into us, they change us. Speaking of his love for his wife, Eliza, Rushdie refers at one point to a poem by e.e. cummings, which closes with the lines ‘and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart / I carry your heart (I carry you in my heart), which is how, in a small way, I felt after reading it. In the documentary film that has just opened here in the UK Rushdie says ‘it’s not just about me, it’s about the ability to say your truth’. Knife is a book about the reconstruction of happiness, and Rushdie make the reader a gift of his resilience.
I also highly recommend the novel that was just about to be published before the attack happened, and that is VICTORY CITY. It proved an interestingly divisive read when we did it for book club on the pod (episode #142 if you want to listen back) but I loved it and particularly loved the way it celebrated the power of storytelling to transcend the limitations of human mortality and time.
Shout out to cover designer @arshraziuddin whose design for this book is so compelling and effective – it can’t have been an easy design brief, and I think the design really honours the content.
@jonathancapebooks #knifesalmanrushdie #writersmemoirs #bookpodcast #shortbrilliantbooks
Book of the Day: Ibiza Surprise by Dorothy Dunnett. Have you like me always been meaning to read Dorothy Dunnett’s historical novels the Lymond series and the House of Niccolo? @philip_chaffee and @lauraxpotter on the podcast are huge fans and always trying to get me into them, but what can I say, with six Game of Kings books, and eight House of Niccoló they’re a time-commitment and thus far I’ve never got beyond ownership of a copy of each. But Dunnett is highly acclaimed as a magnificent storyteller and I’m pretty sure I’ve been missing out. Imagine how delighted I was, then, to find that in addition to lengthy historical novels Dorothy Dunnett also wrote a series of light, stylish crime capers featuring portrait-painter turned investigator Johnson Johnson who lives in a yacht and spends his time cruising the Mediterranean solving crimes. There are seven mysteries in the series, I read Ibiza Surprise, which features sparky heroine Sarah Cassells, who works as a private chef and becomes embroiled in an artworld treasure heist. You’ve got your romantic hero amateur detective but what I loved about this – and apparently it’s true of the other books in the series – is that Sarah is no background character. Kirkus reviews found ‘much to enjoy in the arched-eyebrow dialogue, the glittery international backgrounds and the undeniable singularity of the combative heroine’. It was a lot of fun, and I’m now keeping my eyes out in secondhand bookshops for the others in the series. It was a perfect summer read, but I can imagine it would be just as delightful curled up in a cosy chair as the autumn nights draw in.
If you’re on the hunt for the Dolly mysteries they were out of print for many years, but are now available again thanks to @farragobooks, sister imprint of @duck_books and @septemberpublishing
#dorothydunnett #cosycrimenovels #ashortbookforwhenyoudonthavetimetoreadalongbook #nowIvereaddorothydunnetandappreciateher #thelymondchroniclestheywaitforme
Book of the day is EARTH 7 by Deb Olin Unferth. Sometimes I don’t find the books, the books find me.The Parliament Hill Lido is a magical place for many reasons, but one of them is the excellent book swap (this is where I found The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka, a book that filled my heart with joy while also breaking it). According to the blurb EARTH 7 is about two women, one raised in near solitude in an underwater research station, the other a luxury resort bartender who may or may not be a robot. They fall in love, gaze at the stars and try to salvage some trace of what planet Earth once was. First line: ‘In those years, the sky was full of sulfur and diamonds, shot into the air by cannons to scatter the sunlight.’ I read the first chapter and am completely hooked by grumpy misanthropic mother and her teenage daughter (who is presumably going to fall in love with the robot-bartender). I know I’m supposed to be reading Booker books, but can I, at this point, resist a side-quest?
#earth7 @dauntbookspub #booksthathookyou #whohasntdreamedoflivinginabubbleunderthesea #thingsteenagerssay #electrichilariousandharrowing
Book of the day is LONDON FALLING by Patrick Redden Keefe, which is on the just-announced shortlist for the Baillie-Gifford prize, a brilliant source, by the way, of incredible books. London Falling tells the story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year old who fell to his death from a luxury riverside tower block. The coroner ruled it a suicide but Zac’s devastated parents didn’t believe it. They were even more perplexed when they discovered the teenager had been leading a fantasy life posing as the son of a Russian oligarch. London Falling is an absolutely spellbinding read that will make you look at London in a completely new way. Patrick Radden-Keefe finds connections between events that you will remember reading about – this is a book full of oh my god moments – to reveal the dark underworld hidden beneath London’s shiny facade, a world powered by untold wealth and a city full of people who would look the other way to benefit from it. ‘London is to the billionaire as the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutang’ Boris Johnson boasted in 2014. London Falling is a riveting page-turner and while the story is heartbreaking, it is also an exhilarating read, as through his dedicated investigation Radden-Keefe is able to make sense of the mystery and give Zac’s parents, Rachelle and Matthew, the answers they were so desperately searching for. It’s a truly extraordinary read and so if you haven’t got to it yet, I recommend seeking it out.
#patrickraddenkeefe #londonfalling #booksaboutlondon #booksyoucantputdown #booksyouthoughtwouldntbefunbecauseofthesubjectmatterbutactuallydobringyoujoy
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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.