Episodes

  • Kathryn Hughes: Catland

    Kathryn Hughes: Catland
    Apr 24 2024
    My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the author and historian Kathryn Hughes, whose new book Catland tells the story of how we learned to love pusskins. Content warning: contains Kipling, Edward Lear, some stinking carts of offal, and the troubled life and weird art of the extraordinary Louis Wain.
    Show more Show less
    40 mins
  • Percival Everett: James

    Percival Everett: James
    Apr 17 2024
    On this week’s Book Club podcast I’m joined by Percival Everett, who has followed up his Booker-shortlisted The Trees with James, a novel that reimagines the story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the fugitive slave Jim. Percival tells me what he learned from Mark Twain, how being funny doesn’t make him a comic novelist, and why Black resistance to racism is a matter of language itself.
    Show more Show less
    22 mins
  • Dorian Lynskey: Everything Must Go

    Dorian Lynskey: Everything Must Go
    Apr 10 2024
    In this week’s Book Club podcast my guest is Dorian Lynskey. In his new book Everything Must Go, Dorian looks at the way humans have imagined the end of the world from the Book of Revelations to the present day. He tells me how old fears find new forms, why Dr Strangelove divides critics, and why there’s always a few people who anticipate global annihilation with something that looks like longing.
    Show more Show less
    40 mins
  • Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War

    Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War
    Apr 3 2024
    My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the investigative reporter Annie Jacobsen, whose hair-raising new book Nuclear War: A Scenario imagines – minute by minute – what would unfold if the nuclear balloon went up. But rather than a work of fantasy, this is based on meticulously sourced reporting about the effects of nuclear weapons and the structures and policies that govern them. We all knew it would be bad but Jacobsen tells us just how bad, and how fast, and quite how little the people who push the button will actually know about what's going on.
    Show more Show less
    45 mins
  • Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Man of Two Faces

    Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Man of Two Faces
    Mar 27 2024
    In this week's Book Club podcast my guest is the Pulitzer prize winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose new book is the memoir A Man of Two Faces. He tells me about the value of trauma to literature, learning about his history through Hollywood, falling asleep in class... and the rotten manners of Oliver Stone.
    Show more Show less
    43 mins
  • Joel Morris: Be Funny Or Die

    Joel Morris: Be Funny Or Die
    Mar 20 2024
    My guest in this week's Book Club is Joel Morris, an award-winning comedy writer whose credits run from co-creating Philomena Cunk to writing gags for Viz and punching up the script for Paddington 2. In his new book Be Funny Or Die, he sets out to analyse how and why comedy works. He tells me why there are only three keys on the clown keyboard, what laughter does for us in neurological terms, and why Laurel and Hardy could get away with anything.
    Show more Show less
    50 mins
  • Lauren Oyler: No Judgement

    Lauren Oyler: No Judgement
    Mar 13 2024
    This week's Book Club podcast sees me speaking to the critic and novelist Lauren Oyler about her first collection of essays, No Judgment: On Being Critical. Lauren and I talked about the freedoms and affordances of the essay form; about how making and criticising art has been changed – and hasn't – by the advent of the digital age; why it's weird we all still treat the internet as if it's a new thing; and about why David Foster Wallace can still be a role-model even after his cancellation.
    Show more Show less
    41 mins
  • Peter Pomerantsev: How To Win An Information War

    Peter Pomerantsev: How To Win An Information War
    Mar 6 2024
    My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Peter Pomerantsev. Peter's new book How To Win An Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler tells the story of Sefton Delmer, the great genius of twentieth-century propaganda. Peter tells me about Delmer's remarkable life, compromised ethics, and the lessons he still has to offer us.
    Show more Show less
    44 mins