The Book Club

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the writer and critic Ruth Scurr, whose new book marks today's 200th anniversary of Napoleon's death to cast a fresh light on this most written-about of characters. In Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows, she finds an unexpected thread running through the life of this man of war - his relationship with nature and with gardens, from the plot he tended as a schoolboy to the garden in his final exile in St Helena. She tells me about what he owed the Revolution and how he came to turn it, at least apparently, on its head; about his complex relationship with Josephine and its Boris-and-Carrie echoes; and about the single walled garden on which the future of Europe can be argued to have turned.  Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Book Club podcast, I'm joined by Richard Dawkins to talk about his new book Books Do Furnish A Life: Reading and Writing Science. Richard tells me - among much else - what makes science writing (and science fiction) exciting; the questions science can (and can't) answer; why he felt it necessary to invest so much of his time arguing against religion; and why the left recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe is such an odd shape.   Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hwaet! My guest in this week’s Book Club Podcast is Maria Dahvana Headley, whose new book is a translation of the Anglo-Saxon classic Beowulf. She talks to me about how she has produced what she bills as a 'feminist translation' of this most macho of poems; about the poem’s braided history and complex language; and about what it tells us of the Anglo-Saxon worldview.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Book club podcast my guest is Roland Philipps - whose new book Victoire: A Wartime Story of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal tells the morally murky and humanly fascinating story of Mathilde Carre - a vital figure of the early days of resistance in occupied France. Roland's story describes her heroic early work; and its undoing when she was captured and turned collaborator... before she saw, in the figure of an agent for the British secret services, the opportunity for a triple-cross and the hope of redemption.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is the broadcaster and historian Jonathan Dimbleby. In Barbarossa: Hitler's Greatest Mistake, Jonathan describes the extraordinary and horrifying story of the Nazi campaign against Stalin, and its still more extraordinary strategic and diplomatic background. It's a bloody and sometimes tragicomic parable of how dictators can become detached from reality - and in it he makes the case that, contra the prevailing image of Anglo-American victories in France having been decisive in winning the Second World War, Hitler's goose was actually cooked as early as 1941. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is crime queen Lynda La Plante - talking about her new novel Judas Horse, and three decades of her most famous creation, Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison. She tells me how she wrote her way out of acting, why so much crime drama now turns her off, why she thinks it's so important to get police work right and let baddies be baddies - and why she's haunted by Rentaghost. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the Book Club podcast, I'm joined by the veteran foreign correspondent Michela Wrong to talk about her new book Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad. While Rwanda's president Paul Kagame has basked in the approval of Western donors, Michela argues, his burnished image conceals a history of sadism, repression and violent tyranny. She tells me what our goodies-and-baddies account of Rwanda's genocide missed, and why it urgently needs correcting.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the former editor of the Today Programme, Sarah Sands. Sarah tells me how an addiction to the buzz of news and gossip gave way in her to a fascination for the opposite, as described in her new book The Interior Silence: 10 Lessons From Monastic Life. Come for the revelations about grifting nuns and what happened to Boris Johnson’s dongle; stay for her discoveries about how we can all bring a little of the peace of the cloister into our hectic secular lives.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Horatio Clare - whose superb latest book is about going mad. Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing, tells the story of Horatio's recent breakdown and forcible hospitalisation - what he experienced, how he recovered, how it pushed him to investigate the unquestioned assumptions about 'chemical imbalances' causing mental illness, and the questionable and effectively random ways in which drugs are prescribed. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The public conversation - especially on social media - is widely agreed to be of a dismally low quality. In this week’s Book Club podcast I’m joined by two people who have ideas about how we can make it better. Andrew Doyle’s new book is Free Speech: And Why It Matters; Ian Leslie’s is Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart And How They Can Bring Us Together. We talk free speech, tribalism, cancel culture - and how we can learn to disagree more productively.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.