The Book Club

The Spectator
  • 5.0 (2)
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The Book Club

Literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented weekly by Sam Leith.

  1. Philip Marsden: Under A Metal Sky

    13 HR AGO

    Philip Marsden: Under A Metal Sky

    My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Philip Marsden, whose new book Under A Metal Sky: A Journey Through Minerals, Greed and Wonder looks in thrilling and surprising detail at the wonders that are to be found beneath our feet. On the podcast he takes me through the meanings that rocks and metals have had through human history, from the bronze age, via the alchemist's quest for the philosopher's stone, to the present day.

    34 min
  2. Lissa Evans: The Surreal Joys of Producing Father Ted

    29 JAN

    Lissa Evans: The Surreal Joys of Producing Father Ted

    My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the novelist Lissa Evans, talking about her previous life as the producer of the sitcom Father Ted – as described in her new book Picnic on Craggy Island: The Surreal Joys of Producing Father Ted. She tells me about the collaborative genius of Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, the unusual experience of having to cut laughter out of episodes because there was simply too much of it, and sending a sheep to make-up.

    30 min
  3. What we get wrong about The Great Gatsby

    22 JAN

    What we get wrong about The Great Gatsby

    In this week’s Book Club podcast, we’re contemplating the astounding achievement of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in its 100th year. My guest is Professor Sarah Churchwell, author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Making of The Great Gatsby, as well as the introduction to Cambridge University Press’s new edition of the novel. Sarah tells me what we get wrong about this Jazz Age classic, why Fitzgerald’s antisemitism shouldn’t necessarily get him cancelled, and how Fitzgerald’s great novel traces the arc that leads from 1925 to Donald Trump’s second inauguration.

    43 min
  4. Orlando Reade: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost

    15 JAN

    Orlando Reade: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost

    My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Orlando Reade, whose book What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost describes the life and afterlife of one of the greatest poems in the language. Orlando tells me how Milton’s epic has been read with – and against – the grain over the centuries; how it went from being a totem of English exceptionalism to being an encouragement to postcolonial revolutionaries and political thinkers from Malcolm X to C. L. R. James; how the modernists wrestled with Milton… and how Jordan Peterson gets it wrong.

    36 min
  5. Rachel Cooke: The Virago Book of Friendship

    8 JAN

    Rachel Cooke: The Virago Book of Friendship

    In this week’s Books podcast, I am joined by Rachel Cooke, who edits the new book The Virago Book of Friendship. Rachel unpacks the intense, often enigmatic dynamics of female friendships in a spry and very dip-in-and-out-able anthology of writing about female friendship in an exhilaratingly wide array of forms, from high culture to low. There are many gems to cackle over, including: an incomparably tender and exact description of Hannah Arendt by Mary McCarthy; a wonderful, worm-turning character assassination of the ghastly Susan Sontag by her former disciple, Terry Castle; and the revelation that Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore were boon companions for two whole years before they stopped calling each other ‘Miss Bishop’ and ‘Miss Moore’.

    44 min
  6. Orhan Pamuk: Memories of Distant Mountains, Illustrated Notebooks

    1 JAN

    Orhan Pamuk: Memories of Distant Mountains, Illustrated Notebooks

    In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by the Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk to talk about the publication of Memories of Distant Mountains: Illustrated Notebooks. Right up to early adulthood, Orhan had imagined he was destined to be a painter, but then his life took another turn. In these illustrated notebooks he marries words and images in an elliptical sort-of diary. He tells me about what he puts in and what he leaves out, how his imagination works, the artists and writers he admires, what fame has given him, and why he wishes he didn't have to talk about politics.

    37 min
  7. Chris Ware: The Acme Novelty Datebook Volume Three

    18/12/2024

    Chris Ware: The Acme Novelty Datebook Volume Three

    My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Chris Ware — author of Jimmy Corrigan, Building Stories and Rusty Brown, and a man widely regarded as one of the greatest living cartoonists. Chris's new book, The Acme Novelty Datebook Volume Three, opens his sketchbooks for public consumption: a potentially painful move for an artist as self-conscious and perfectionist as Ware. He tells me a bit about the relationship between cartooning and architecture, what he's trying to do with his graphic novels, the importance of R Crumb and Art Spiegelman to his work, and what gave him the confidence to turn his back on fine art.

    39 min
  8. Daniel Tammet: Nine Minds, Inner Lives on the Spectrum

    11/12/2024

    Daniel Tammet: Nine Minds, Inner Lives on the Spectrum

    In this week’s Books podcast, I am joined by the writer Daniel Tammet, whose new book Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum is a pen portrait of nine lives of people on the autism spectrum. On the podcast, he tells me how he happened upon these nine lives, whether ‘spectrum’ is a helpful term when understanding autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and how popular culture’s most famous depiction of autism – Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man – is based on an individual who wasn’t autistic at all.

    38 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented weekly by Sam Leith.

Information

  • Creator
    The Spectator
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2025
  • Episodes
    414
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    The Book Club

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