Episodes

  • Any Human Heart by William Boyd
    Nov 21 2024

    Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, but Logan Mountstuart's - lived from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century - contains more than its fair share of both.

    As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war and as an art-dealer in '60s New York, Logan mixes with the movers and shakers of his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness.

    Here, then, is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart.

    'Astonishing, touching, extremely funny. A brilliant evocation of a past era and an immensely readable story' - Sunday Telegraph


    Show more Show less
    31 mins
  • Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
    Nov 8 2024

    The Morrison siblings have been haunted by tragedy since the sudden death of their parents in an accident when they were young.

    Kate found an escape from the legacy of their dark past in her passion for the natural world. Now a zoologist far away from the small farming community where she grew up, she thinks she's outgrown her three brothers, who were once her entire world.

    But Kate can't seem to escape her childhood or lighten the weight of their mutual past.

    Show more Show less
    28 mins
  • Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
    Oct 3 2024

    Our Missing Hearts is the third novel by the American author Celeste Ng. It was published in 2022 by Penguin Press. The novel follows Noah Gardner (known as Bird) on a bus trip from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lives with his father, to New York City in search for his mother. The novel takes place in a dystopian future under PACT (The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act)

    Show more Show less
    31 mins
  • A Chat with Rachel Sargeant author of the Gloucestershire Crime Series
    Sep 4 2024

    Rachel Sargeant is the author of The Roommates, The Good Teacher, and The Perfect Neighbours. She also writes the Gloucestershire Crime Series, which includes Her Deadly Friend and Her Charming Man.

    She won Writing Magazine’s Crime Short Story competition and has been shortlisted in various competitions including the Bristol Short Story Prize. Her stories have appeared in My Weekly and the Saucy Shorts series by Accent Press.

    She is a graduate of Aberystwyth University and holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. She provides bespoke critiques for Henshaw Press short story competition entrants and is a judge in the quarterly competitions. After many years in Germany, she now lives in Gloucestershire with her family. Her hobbies are visiting country houses and coffee shops, and going to the theatre.

    Show more Show less
    36 mins
  • Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili
    Aug 30 2024

    Shortlisted for the Wilbur & Niso Smith Adventure Prize for Fiction - could this be the winner?


    An extraordinary tale of family, scarifice and our never-ceasing battle with the past, Vardiashvili's mesmerising and unique novel about a boy looking for his father who's returned to his native Georgia for the first time since the war blends gripping mystery with questions about how we remember and why we forget.



    Show more Show less
    30 mins
  • Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
    Aug 5 2024

    Athena Liu is a literary darling.
    June Hayward is literally nobody.

    But when June just happens to witness Athena die in a freak accident, she realises now is her chance to find fame.So what if that means stealing her friend’s work?
    So what if that means creating a new, racially ambiguous identity?
    So what if a social media scandal is about to blow her cover?

    As her lies mount up and threaten her stolen success, how far will June go to keep what she thinks she deserves…

    This is one hell of a story. It’s just not hers to tell.

    Show more Show less
    34 mins
  • Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
    Jul 1 2024
    Is your ability to focus and pay attention in free fall? You are not alone. The average office worker now focuses on any one task for just three minutes. But it’s not your fault. Your attention didn’t collapse. It has been stolen. Internationally bestselling author Johann Hari shows twelve deep factors harming our focus. Once we understand them, together, we can take back our minds.
    Show more Show less
    40 mins
  • The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres
    May 31 2024
    In the brief golden years of King Edward VII's reign, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?
    Show more Show less
    37 mins