The Book Club Review The Book Club Review

Two marriages, two forbidden love affairs, and the passionate search for social and sexual freedom in late 19th-century London. Publishers Penguin call The New Life by Tom Crewe ‘A brilliant and captivating debut, in the tradition of Alan Hollinghurst and Colm Tóibín' but what did our book club make of it? Kate is reporting back, with regular guest Philip Chaffee joining from New York. We'll be catching up on the discussion as well as bringing you our take on recent reads FAKE ACCOUNTS by Lauren Oyler and NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason, as well as our recommendations for books inspired by Crewe's novel.
Booklist
Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler
The Smiley Novels by John Le Carre
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Maurice by E. M. Forster
Alec by William di Canzio
Young Bloomsbury by Nino Strachey
Blackouts by Justin Torres
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant
The Ladies Lindores by Margaret Oliphant
Tom Crewe's booklist on bookshop.org.uk
Podcast episode on Young Bloomsbury
The audiobook of The New Life is read by Freddie Fox and published by Penguin Audio, available wherever you get your audiobooks
Keep up with us between shows. Follow us on Instagram or Threads @bookclubreviewpodcast, browse our website for our full archive, or drop us a line at thebookclubreview@gmail.com
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Thanks for listening, happy reading, happy book clubbing

What did our podcast book club make of Mild Vertigo, Japanese author Mieko Kanai's 1997 novel, recently translated into English by Polly Barton. A 'modernist masterpiece' written in sentences that go on for pages with hardly any paragraph breaks might not seem like an obvious book club winner; listen in to find out if we were won over.
To discuss it Kate is joined by Yuki Tejima, also known as @booknerdtokyo, and Shawn Mooney, aka Shawn the Book Maniac. Listen in for their thoughts on Mild Vertigo, their current reads and our book recommendations for anyone wanting the inside track on great Japanese fiction.
Book list
A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata (trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter) 
Home Reading Service by Fabio Morábito (trans. Curtis Bauer)
Woman Running in the Mountains by Yūko Tsushima (trans. Geraldine Harcourt)
Also Territory of Light and Child of Fortune by Yoko Tsutshima
Grass for my Pillow by Sayiichi Maruya (trans. Dennis Keene)
The Little House by Kyoto Nakajima (trans. Ginny Tapley Takamori)
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuo Tsumura (trans. Polly Barton)
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
Porn: An Oral History by Polly Barton
Butter by Asako Yuzuki (trans. Polly Barton)
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Support the show and get Kate's weekly book-recommendations email, access to our book spreadsheets, connect with fellow readers and join our book club: find all the details on our Patreon page.
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Find full shownotes and our episode archive at our website thebookclubreview.co.uk

Join me (Kate) and Laura as we go through our bookstacks and discuss our recent reads. Find out what why Laura can’t put down The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Meanwhile I’ve discovered Mrs Miniver, a comfort read from the 1930s that still has a message for us today, Laura’s made a discovery of her own – that there’s more to Anita Brookner than Hotel du Lac, with her 1988 novel The Latecomers. We go from one good book club read to another with The Fraud by Zadie Smith, and Laura reports in from the recent backlist past with How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang. I take a detour through a ring of enchanted toadstools with Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, and Laura confesses to having spent a weekend lost in the pages of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. She's only interested in the dragons, mind.
Books mentioned
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther
The Latecomers by Anita Brookner
The Fraud by Zadie Smith (UK paperback out in June)
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
UK listeners can find all the books listed above at our Bookshop.org.uk bookshop, if you purchase them there you'll be supporting independent bookshops and your favourite indie podcasters.
Find out all the details of what we're offering on our Patreon here, including a weekly book recmomendations newsletter from Kate, occasional extra bits and bobs plus access to our pod book spreadsheets, and at the higher tier you can join our bookclub and talk books with Kate in person once a month.
And come and find Kate on Instagram or Threads, or drop us a line at thebookclubreview@gmail.com and let us know your thoughts on the books discussed here anytime.

We’ve put our 2023 reading lists behind us, and now it's time to look ahead to 2024. Who better to guide us through all the new titles coming our way than Chrissy Ryan, owner of North London’s buzziest bookshop and social space, Bookbar.
New books by favourite authors, a non-fiction page-turner that will have you hooked, a high-concept potential blockbuster and a follow-up novel from the author of a debut that got people talking, we’ve got something for everyone.
Not to mention our tips and strategies for how to avoid feeling overwhelmed by that TBR.
Listen via the media player above or your preferred podcast player with this podfollow link.
Books mentioned You are Here by David Nicholls (April)
All that Glitters by Orlando Whitfield (May)
Some Trick by Helen DeWitt
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Glass Houses (May), and Voyeur by Francesca Reece
England is Mine by Nicholas Padamsee (April)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (out in paperback May 2024)
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Fire Weather by John Vaillant
Not the End of the World by Dr Hannah Ritchie
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman (March)
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (and we also mentioned Such a Fun Age)
Notes Find out what we're up to and support the show on Patreon.
The 10 Best New Novelists for 2024, The Observer
Who is Still in the Metaverse by Paul Murray for New York Magazine

It's our 2023 review of the year. Join me (Kate), Laura and Phil as we look back over our favourites, from new releases to backlist gems. Find out our overall book of the year, plus the books we're looking forward to in 2024. If you're wondering what to read next, this is the show for you, with over fifty tried and tested recommendations.
Support the show, get our weekly newsletter or join our monthly book club via Patreon.
Follow us on Instagram or Threads
Find full shownotes and a transcript on our website thebookclubreview.co.uk
Book list
Favourite New Release
August Blue by Deborah Levy
The Rainbow by Yasunari Kawabata, and we also discussed Snow Country
Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks 
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
 
Favourite backlist title
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Charlotte by David Foenkinos
A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
 
Favourite non-fiction
This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes
A House of Air (collected writing, ed. Hermione Lee) by Penelope Fitzgerald 
The Palace Papers by Tina Brown
How to Talk About Books you Haven’t Read by Piere Bayard
Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles 
Free by Lea Ypi
 
Favourite Book Club Read
Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell
The Years by Annie Ernaux
 
Favourite comfort reads
Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe
The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 191/2 Front Gardens by Ben Dark
Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire
Madensky Square by Iva Ibbotson
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Going Zero by Anthony McCarten
 
Most disappointed by
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (but do read Sabrina and Corina)
 
Patreon recommends
Loot by Tania James
Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
Cider House Rules by John Irving
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
The Axman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
Not Now Not Ever by Julia Gillard
All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase
Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
Machines Like Me by Ian McKewan
Death and the Penguin by Andrei Kurkov
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting
 
Overall Book(s) of 2023
Septology by Jon Fosse (and we mentioned Morning and Evening)
Stay True by Hua Hsu
How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
Monsters by Claire Dederer
 
Books we’re looking forward to
Arturo’s Island by Elsa Moranti
Rememberance of Things Past by Proust (vol. 3)
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Tremor by Teju Cole
The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut
 

We read all six Booker shortlisted books, now join us as we evaluate them and try to second-guess the Booker judges, before finding out the winner - don't miss our hot take.
'A novel is a mirror carried along a high road' says Chair of the Booker judges Esi Edyugan, quoting Stendhal. ‘Year after year’, she continues, ‘the Booker Prize encourages us to take sight of ourselves in the lives of others, to slip for the length of a story into different skins, to grapple with unfamiliar worlds that allow us to see our own afresh.'
Unsurprisingly, seeing the world as it is right now has led to the most downbeat shortlist in our collective memory, but that doesn't mean these books don't make for fantastic discussion. As ever, we won't spoil the plots we'll just give you a sense of what we thought of them.
Join me, Kate, with Laura, our regular guest Phil Chaffee, and first-timer, book blogger Martin Voke, as we talk through 
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (audiobook narrated by Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, Ciaran O'Brien, Lisa Caruccio Came and published by Penguin Audio)
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (audiobook narrated by Gerry O’Brien and published by Bolinda Audio @bolindaaudio @borrowbox)
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (audiobook narrated by Torian Brackett and published by Fourth Estate)
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (audiobook narrated by Maya Saroya and published by Picador)
This Other Eden by Paul Harding (audiobook narrated by Eduardo Ballerini, and published by Penguin Audio)
and
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (narrated by Sarah Bernstein and published by Granta)
And for a deep dive into the winner and all fifty-seven previous winners of The Booker Prize don't miss Martin's website On the Prize