The Book Club Review

The Happy Reader special: a celebration of Penguin's magazine that thinks it's a book club, and a live book club discussion of their Winter Book of the Season, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. We interview editor Seb Emina who tells us the secrets of how the magazine is put together, and has some great ideas for how to get through the TBR pile including 'speed-dating for books', the perfect suggestion for the enthusiastic but time-poor reader. And we finish with our usual round of recommendations you might like to try for your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram @thebookclubreviewpod or Twitter @BookClubRvwpod, or leave us a comment on iTunes, we'd love to hear from you, and do subscribe if you like the show and be among the first to hear a new episode. • The Happy Reader magazine is produced biannually and can be found in good bookshops worldwide, or seek them out online at thehappyreader.com. Burley Fisher books are at 400 Kingsland Road, London E8, or online at burleyfisherbooks.com • Books mentioned in this episode: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1984 by George Orwell, Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, plus in our extra bit at the end we discuss Birds, Art, Life, Death by Kyo Maclear and Swing Time by Zadie Smith. • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles and A Horse Walks Into A Bar by David Grossman. • And if you're still reading then you might be the kind of person who will want to stay tuned for our extra bit at the end where we discuss what we've been reading and find out how Happy Reader editor Seb Emina gets through the piles of books he fears he won't have time to read in his lifetime.

It came highly recommended, and so with anticipation Kate's book club read All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West. We knew she was good at gardening, but what did we make of Sackville-West as a writer? Listen in to find out. In our regular interview we explore just how heated book discussions can get when you have a pair of knitting needles to hand, with London's Kniterati book club member Maeve O'Sullivan. And we have some new recommendations for your next book club read including some from friend-of-the-pod Emily of the Walking Book club who returns with some great choices to follow on from Vita Sackvlle-West.  • Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast. Email us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, or leave us a comment on iTunes. If you like the show then click subscribe and never miss an episode.  • Find out more about the Kniterati at their Facebook page: https://en-gb.facebook.com/Kniterati/ Details of Emily's Walking Book Club can be found at her website: https://emilybooks.wordpress.com/the-walking-book-club/ • Books mentioned in this episode: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, Orlando by Virginia Woolf and The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster. Emily recommended A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, Lolly Willows by Dorothy Whipple and Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. We also discuss The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton and The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles. • If you have read this far then you're probably the sort of person who might want to keep listening for our extra bit at the end, where we talk about what we've been reading outside of book club. In this episode Laura confesses she's moved on from Georgette Heyer and is now hooked on Enid Blyton.

For Laura’s book club we delve into The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. Longlisted for the Booker Prize (2017), it didn’t make the shortlist, but did it make for a good book club read? Meanwhile for fans of horror and Halloween enthusiasts alike we met up with Andy Russell of London’s Horror Book Club to find out about the joys of being frightened by your book at bedtime. And we have recommendations for your next book club read including our bookseller recommendation from James Elliott at Daunt’s in Belsize Park.  • Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast. Email us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, or leave us a comment on iTunes. If you like the show then click subscribe and never miss an episode.  • Find out more about the Horror Book Club at www.thehorrorbookclub.com. Daunt Books are at www.dauntbooks.co.uk • Books mentioned in this episode: Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota, When I Hit You by Meena Kandasami, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, The Troop by Nick Cutter, House of Leaves by Danielewski, Elmet by Fiona Mozley, The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith.  • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West. • If you have read this far then you're probably the sort of person who might want to keep listening for our extra bit at the end, where we talk about what we've been reading outside of book club. 

For Kate's most recent book club we set off for the high Himalayas in search of snow leopards and spiritual enlightenment with Peter Matthiessen's cult classic. But what did we make of it? Is it a 'man's book'? And did it make for good debate? Meanwhile our regular interview feature sees us in Paris interviewing Morgan Thomas of The American Library about his Proust book club. We end with the usual round of recommendations for your next book club read. Our bookseller recommendation for this episode comes from Joe Hedinger of The Book Hive in Norwich. • Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast. Email us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, or leave us a comment on iTunes. If you like the show then do subscribe. You'll never miss an episode and it really helps with our iTunes rankings. • The Book Hive can be found at www.thebookhive.co.uk. The American Library in Paris is www.theamericanlibraryinparis.org • Books mentioned in this episode: Tracks by Robyn Davidson, Barbarian Days by William Finnegan, A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne, Birds, Art, Life, Death: A Year of Observation by Kyo Maclear, Dogear magazine, www.dogear.co.uk, Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane plus a few more in our extras at the end. • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. • If you have read this far then you're probably the sort of person who might want to keep listening for our extra bit at the end, where we talk about what we've been reading outside of book club. Catch up on the tail end of our summer reading and back-to-school good intentions.

Laura's latest book club read was This Is London by Ben Judah (2016), a spare and unflinching investigation into what life in London can be like for the migrants who make up over 40% of the city's population. Not a gentle read, but a revealing one that frustrated and impressed in equal measure – a good formula for debate. For our regular interview, we spoke with Claire Griffiths who runs the book club at Islington's Ink84. We end with recommendations for your next book club read, including some from Word on the Water, a London institution and bookshop on a canal barge moored at Kings Cross. • Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast. Email us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, or leave us a comment on iTunes. • Ink84 bookshop can be found at www.ink84.co.uk, and the London Book Barge can be found on Facebook under Word on the Water. • Books mentioned in this episode: Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich Days Without End by Sebastian Barry The Power by Naomi Alderman The Return by Hisham Matar Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf Swimming With Sharks by Joris Luyendijk A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks NW by Zadie Smith The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver The Last London by Ian Sinclair And more if you keep listening to the end... • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing The Snow Leopard (1978) by Peter Matthiessen. • If you have read this far then you're probably the sort of person who might want to keep listening for our 'extra' bit at the end, where we talk about what we've been reading outside of book club. Stay tuned for what we've been reading – or trying to read – over the summer.

Lincoln in the Bardo is a ghostly story that unfolds in a graveyard over the course of a single night. Narrated by a chorus of voices and historical sources this innovative novel invites discussion, and won the Booker Prize in 2017. In this episode we find out what Kate's book club made of it. Were they baffled or bewitched by this multifarious cast of ghostly characters, and were they daunted by the profound sadness of the subject matter, the death of a much loved child. We also speak to Michelle and Claire from the East London Feminist Book Club, and get some good ideas for how to manage a book club where everyone is learning as they go along. As ever we end with a range of recommendations you won't want to miss for your next read. Book recommendations The Tenth of December, George Saunders The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood Memoir of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing The Bees, Laline Paull Grief is a Thing With Feathers, Max Porter The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas Days Without End, Sebastian Barry Beloved, Toni Morrison Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome The Power, Naomi Alderman Notes Keep listening for our 'extra' bit at the end, where we talk about what we've been reading outside of book club. Stay tuned for true confessions of what we keep on our kindles. Follow us on Instagram @bookclubreviewpodcast, or get in touch at thebookclubreview@gmail.com and tell us about a book you love. You can also find our episode archive, full shownotes and articles on our website.

What did Laura's book club make of THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead, now a Pulitzer Prize and US National Book Award winner. We also discover a school whose library is in a specially converted London bus. Teacher Tom Milne tells us all about their school book club, and how they came up with the ultimate list of reading recommendations.  • Books mentioned in this episode: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, The Miniaturist by Jesse Burton, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, The Sellout by Paul Beatty, On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram @thebookclubreviewpod or leave us a comment at the episode page on our website, we'd love to hear from you. What's a follow-on read that you would recommend?    

In which Kate and Laura have wildly differing opinions over Kim Leine's historical novel The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (nominated for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award) but discover a shared distaste for the word 'greasy'. 'My front teeth are quite fallen out but for five that dangle like scoundrels of the night from a gallows' complains the main character, Morten Falck, as we follow his experiences attempting to convert the Inuit to Christianity in late-18th-century Greenland. Did this make for a great book club book? Listen in to find out. We also interview Frances Ambler, features editor of Oh Comely magazine about championing new books by women writers and we have some great recommendations for your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram @thebookclubreviewpod or leave us a comment on iTunes, we'd love to hear from you. Subscribe and never miss an episode. • Books also discussed in this episode include: The North Water, Ian McGuire, Days Without End, Sebastian Barry, The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald, The Lucky Ones, Julianne Pachico, The Idiot, Elif Batuman, The Forever War, Joe Haldeman and To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding.  

In this episode Kate makes a serious confession, and we try to figure out if The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon is set in an avenue or a cul-de-sac. We also tackle the more important question of whether it made a good book club book. In our interview Kate is put through her paces on a windy Hampstead Heath chatting to Emily Rhodes about her Walking Book Club. We end with some recommendations for your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram @thebookclubreviewpod or leave us a comment on iTunes, we'd love to hear from you. • Books mentioned in this episode: The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson, West with the Night by Beryl Markham, All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, Someone at a Distance, Dorothy Whipple, Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig, Brodecks Report, Philippe Claudel, Westwood, Stella Gibbons, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, The View from the Harbour, Elizabeth Taylor, Hot Milk, Deborah Levy, Breakfast with the Nikolides, Rumer Godden, The Summer Book, Tove Jansson • We recommend any branch of the Daunt bookshops, which can be found in Hampstead, Cheapside, Chelsea, Holland Park and Belsize Park. • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine.

This episode features a rare falling out between Kate and her book club over Margaret Atwood's latest novel, Hag-Seed, while Laura's book club appreciate the captivating travel memoir Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Bulgarian emigrée Kapka Kassabova. We also chat with Michael Waldman, a documentary film-maker who tells us about a book so good it made a long journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway pass in a moment. And finally, as always, a few recommendations to help you decide your next book club read. • Get in touch with us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram @thebookclubreviewpod or leave us a comment on iTunes, we'd love to hear from you. Subscribe and never miss an episode. • Books mentioned in this episode: The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood, Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières, From the Holy Mountain, William Dalrymple, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood, Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel • For our next book club we will be reading and discussing The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon