The Book Club

The Spectator

4,4 (76)
LIVRES
CHAQUE SEMAINE

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

-3 J

Josh Cohen: All The Rage

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the psychoanalyst and writer Josh Cohen. With anger seemingly the default condition of our time, Josh’s new book All The Rage: Why Anger Drives the World seeks to unpick where anger comes from, what it does to us, and how it might function in the human psyche as a dark twin of the impulses we think of as love. Photo credit: Charlotte Speechley

38 min
13 NOV.

Michael Moorcock: celebrating 60 years of New Worlds

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the writer, musician and editor Michael Moorcock, whose editorship of New Worlds magazine is widely credited with ushering in a 'new wave' of science fiction and developing the careers of writers like J G Ballard, Iain Sinclair, Pamela Zoline, Thomas M Disch and M John Harrison. With the release of a special edition of New Worlds, honouring the 60th anniversary of his editorship, Mike tells me about how he set out to marry the best of literary fiction with the best of the pulp tradition, how he fought off obscenity charges over Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron, about his friendship with Ballard and his enmity with Kingsley Amis – and why he's determined never to lose his vulgarity.

43 min
6 NOV.

100th anniversary of A A Milne and E H Shepard, with James Campbell

On this week's Book Club podcast we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of a landmark in children's publishing, When We Were Very Young — which represented the first collaboration between A A Milne and E H Shepard, who would (of course) go on to write an illustrate Winnie-the-Pooh. Sam Leith is joined by James Campbell, who runs the E H Shepard estate. He tells Sam how the war shaped the mood and success of that first book, why Daphne Milne's snobbery and ambition left Shepard out in the cold, what happened to Christopher Robin... and how Pooh became Pooh.

36 min
30 OCT.

John Suchet: In Search of Beethoven

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is John Suchet whose new book In Search of Beethoven: A Personal Journey describes his lifelong passion for the composer. He tells me how the ‘Eroica’ was his soundtrack to the Lebanese Civil War, about the mysteries of Beethoven’s love-life and deafness, why he had reluctantly to accept that Beethoven was ‘ugly and half-mad’; and how even in the course of writing the book, new scholarship upended his assumptions about events in the composer’s life (from his meeting with Mozart to the circumstances of his death).

43 min
23 OCT.

Rachel Clarke: The Story of a Heart

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Rachel Clarke, author of the Baillie Gifford longlisted new book The Story of a Heart. Rachel tells me how she came so intimately to tell the story of 9-year-old Keira, whose death in a car accident and donation of her heart gave a chance at life to a dying stranger, Max. She describes the medical and conceptual changes that led up to that extraordinary possibility and explains how, as a medic, you have to be able to combine technical professionalism with a sense of the sanctity of the human beings you work with. And she catches us up on how Max is doing eight years on. This podcast is in association with Serious Readers. Use offer code ‘TBC’ for £100 off any HD Light and free UK delivery. Go to: www.seriousreaders.com/spectator

48 min
16 OCT.

Sue Prideaux: Wild Thing, A Life of Paul Gaugin

In this week's Book Club podcast Sam Leith’s guest is the great Sue Prideaux who, after her prize-winning biographies of Nietzsche, Munch and Strindberg, has turned her attention to Gauguin in Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin. She tells me about the great man's unexpected brief career as an investment banker, his highly unusual marriage and his late turn to anticolonial activism. Plus: why she starts with his teeth. This podcast is in association with Serious Readers. Use offer code ‘TBC’ for £100 off any HD Light and free UK delivery. Go to: www.seriousreaders.com/spectator Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

42 min
9 OCT.

Alan Johnson: Harold Wilson, Twentieth Century Man

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who joins me to talk about his new biography of Harold Wilson. He tells me about Wilson’s rocket-powered rise to the top, how he learned oratory on the hoof, why he might have been right to be paranoid… and what really went on with Marcia. This podcast is in association with Serious Readers. Use offer code 'TBC' for £100 off any HD Light and free UK delivery. Go to: www.seriousreaders.com/spectator

34 min
2 OCT.

Malcolm Gladwell: Revenge of the Tipping Point

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Malcolm Gladwell. Twenty-five years after he published The Tipping Point, Malcolm returns to the subject of his first book in Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering. He tells me about the 'magic third', why it's not just Covid that gave us superspreaders, and how what he calls an 'overstory' can have dramatic effects on human behaviour. He talks, too, about why counterintuitive discoveries are easy to find, and why we're all wrong about everything all the time. This podcast is in association with Serious Readers. Use offer code 'TBC' for £100 off any HD Light and free UK delivery. Go to: www.seriousreaders.com/spectator

39 min

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4,4

sur 5

76 notes

One of the very best

12/12/2022

dbev79

Sam Leith is a charming and terrifically informed and thoughtful reader and interviewer. This podcast never disappoints and is the best books cast I’ve found.
Douglas-Fairhurst is wonderful

08/01/2022

Buhlteufelin

The ever fascinating Robert Douglas-Fairhurst was a great guest and the subsequent episode with Borch Jacobsen was intriguing and soberly radical. Excellent podcast.
Wonderful surprise

17/11/2021

Destael

All the interviews on this podcast are typically informative and well done as a rule however I just had a good surprise today. Tessa Dunlop was interviewed about Army Girls. I didn’t expect it to be as fascinating and vivid as it turned out to be—nothing negative about her of course —it’s just that military topics are not usually what I turn to with interest. She was outstanding and I loved every minute of the interview. Can’t wait to get the book now.
can do without idiotic laughter

17/07/2021

sextus Pompeius

Generally it’s very good and by far the best of its kind available, better than radio 4’s equivalents now. Occasional slips, like Frances Wilson on Lawrence—spoiled by irritating laughter throughout.