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5. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

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May 31, 2017/Posted by: The Book Club Review

In this episode Laura’s book club are reading The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon. The novel is set in 1970s England, during an unusually long heatwave. In an ordinary suburban neighbourhood a woman goes missing. For two ten-year-old girls, Grace and Tilly, searching for God is a way to find her and bring […]

Laura's book club curls up with Joanna Cannon's Sunday Times bestselling novel, but is it the 'unique and unforgettable' debut they were expecting? Listen in to find out. We also meet up with Emily Rhodes to learn about her Walking Book Club on London's Hampstead Heath. We finish with book recommendations.

4. Border + Hag-Seed

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May 5, 2017/Posted by: The Book Club Review

Laura’s book club have been reading the travel memoir Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Bulgarian emigrée Kapka Kassabova. She explores the borderzone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece in the company of border guards and treasure hunters, entrepreneurs and botanists, psychic healers and ritual fire-walkers, refugees and smugglers, and traces the physical and […]

We go wandering through Eastern Europe with Kapka Kassabova as our guide, while Margaret Atwood retells Shakespeare's Tempest with mixed results. Or so Kate thinks, anyway, but her book club don't necessarily agree. Listen in to hear the debate.

3. The Left Hand of Darkness + Secondhand Time

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March 29, 2017/Posted by: The Book Club Review

Can a sci-fi novel make for a good book club book? We find out with The Left-Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. The novel is set on a planet called Winter where all the inhabitants are all of neutral gender. Much like Earth they are unaware of life in the universe beyond their own planet and so […]

Two potentially challenging books win over our book clubs entirely. Don't be put off by the subject matter. We admit gender-bending fantasy and post-Soviet documentary might sound a bit tricky, but not at all. Let us convince you. We also talk to 88-year-old Anne Thompson about what her book club means to her. And we finish with book recommendations.

The Vegetarian and The Reader podcast episode

2. The Vegetarian + The Reader

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March 19, 2017/Posted by: The Book Club Review

Two book clubs. Two books. What did we read this month? Kate’s book club chose to read The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith, as it won the 2016 Booker International Prize. Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but […]

It's a translation treat of an episode, as we delve into Han Kang's The Vegetarian, an unusual tale of a young woman who stops eating meat, and The Reader, the bestseller of yesteryear by Bernhard Schlink. Very different novels. Very different book club discussions? Listen in to find out. We also speak to broadcaster Sue Nelson about starting up a book club in a village where she didn't know anybody, and as ever, we end with some recommendations for your next book club read.

The Sellout and Hillbilly Elegy book podcast episode

The Sellout + Hillbilly Elegy • #1

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March 19, 2017/Posted by: The Book Club Review

  Listen in to our book club episode on The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s satirical novel that won the Booker Prize in 2016, and Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance. The narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe his father’s pioneering work will result in […]

Our book clubs report back on The Sellout, Paul Beatty's Booker winning satire and Hillbilly Elegy, the memoir by J.D. Vance that commentators claimed made sense of the election of Donald Trump. Two politically charged books, but what did our book clubs make of them? Listen in to find out if you should add them to your reading pile.