We discuss Pulitzer-prize winning comic novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer, and Joseph Cassara’s The House of Impossible Beauties, a novel of drag queens and drag balls in 1980s New York. Both received rave reviews from the critics, but did they make for good book club books? Listen in to find out. Book recommendations Fair […]

  We’re joined by US Vogue magazine’s culture editor Chloe Schama to consider The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit, the latest book read by Kate’s book club. We consider the genre of ‘anti-memoir’ (and if you’re unfamiliar with the term you will find yourself among friends) and come up with some light alternative reading in case it […]

From no formal education before the age of seventeen to a PhD from Cambridge ten years later, Tara Westover’s transformation is the stuff of Hollywood. And that’s before you learn about the violence and brainwashing that tainted her upbringing within her Mormon survivalist family. Westover’s remarkable memoir, Educated, made Barack Obama’s summer reading list. But what did […]

A Far Cry From Kensington has many fans amongst the critics but what did Kate’s book club make of it? Did they fall in love with Muriel Spark’s genteel farce set in the postwar London publishing industry? Or did they need more convincing of Spark’s genius? For an informed opinion we interview Hannah Griffin of […]

The New York Times called it a ‘powerfully expansive novel’ and it was shortlisted for the Booker, but what did Laura’s book club make of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien? For our regular book club interview, we get radical with London’s Radical Reading Group. And we finish as always with some […]

It has been called her finest novel yet, but what did Laura’s book club make of Zadie Smith’s Swing Time? In our regular interview, we talk to The Divas, a close-knit group of women based in north-west London, about books, friendship and travel. And we finish as always with some fresh recommendations for your next […]

East West Street is the gripping memoir by prominent British barrister Philippe Sands. It’s a history of atrocity combined with a relentless search for the truth, with Sands digging deep into both his own family history and the legal framework that eventually brought Nazi war criminals to justice. Sands tells the story of two lawyers, Hersch […]

We find out what Kate’s book club made of Dr Fischer of Geneva, or The Bomb Party, by Graham Greene. Alfred Jones, a widower who works as a translator for a chocolate company in Switzerland, meets Anna-Luise Fischer in a restaurant. Despite the difference in their ages the two fall deeply in love. They marry […]

Proustian mediatation on love and desire? Atmospheric beach read? What did Laura’s book club make of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name? First published in 2007 and recently made into an Oscar-nominated film, the story follows 17-year-old Elio’s obsession with charismatic Oliver,  a summer guest at his parents’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. […]

We debate Two Serious Ladies, the neglected 1940s ‘cult’ classic by Jane Bowles, and David Grossman’s A Horse Walks Into A Bar, which won the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. For our regular interview, we talk to Kat Brown about how she started the Jilly Cooper Book Club. Book recommendations To The End Of The Land […]

When we’re not reading books, what’s our dream publication? A magazine that takes the book club as its form and runs with it. And so it is with great delight, we bring you an episode inspired by The Happy Reader, Penguin’s very special publication that has a cult-following amongst those in-the-know. We discuss their winter […]