Christmas has come early! And do we have a festive treat for you! It's a funny, thrilling and thorough chat with returning champ Helen Lederer! We visited Helen's home back in 2019, but now she's coming to us, visiting the prestigious Margate Bookie book festival in front of an ecstatic audience. We talked to her about her legendary comedy career (including the people she got off with), the game-changing Comedy Women in Print Prize that she instigated, her hilarious books Losing It and Not That I'm Bitter, the mindbending experience that was Celebrity Big Brother and almost getting a tattoo. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Preorder your copy of Daisy's Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and visit Daisy's Substack to find out about her live dates.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Helen Lederer - Not That I'm Bitter

Helen Lederer - Losing It

Carrie Fisher - Wishful Drinking

Anthony Trollope - Can You Forgive Her?

Daisy Buchanan - Insatiable

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Miranda July - All Fours

Sue Townsend - Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

John Betjeman - Collected Poems

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It's our season finale! And we are spending it with an absolute legend. Miranda Sawyer is a brilliant and inspirational journalist, broadcaster and author. She started her career at the iconic Smash Hits and has since worked for practically every major newspaper and magazine including The Face, Select, The Guardian, The Observer and Vogue. She's the author of the books Park and Ride, Out of Time and her latest Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs. We talked to Miranda about the women of Britpop, the genius of Smash Hits, corresponding with Joan Didion and getting off with Grace Jones. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Preorder your copy of Daisy's Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and visit Daisy's Substack to find out about her live dates. The episode is sponsored by Serious Readers. To get £100 off your HD Serious Readers reading lamp (and free delivery), visit seriousreaders.com/booked and use the code: BOOKED at checkout.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Miranda Sawyer - Uncommon People

Miranda Sawyer - Out of Time

Holly Bourne - So Thrilled For You

Viv Albertine - Clothes, Music, Boys

Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None

Ian Fleming - Casino Royale

Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye

Truman Capote - In Cold Blood

Tom Wolfe - The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby

Hunter S Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Lili Anolik - Didion and Babitz

Eve Babitz - Eve's Hollywood

Joan Didion - Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Jessica Stanley - Consider Yourself Kissed

Lily Allen - My Thoughts Exactly

Jude Rogers - The Sound of Being Human

Sylvia Patterson - I'm Not With the Band

Miki Berenyi - Fingers Crossed

Vivien Goldman - Rebel Musix, Scribe on a Vibe: Frontline Adventures Linking Punk, Reggae, Afrobeat and Jazz

Michael Cragg - Reach For the Stars

Craig Brown - One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time

Eva Rice - This Could Be Everything

Oliver Burkeman - Meditations For Mortals

Oliver Burkeman - Four Thousand Weeks

Patrick Freyne - Ok Lets Do Your Stupid Idea

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Get ready for a really fun, warm and refreshing chat with one of our favourite authors, the brilliant Amanda Prowse! Amanda is an Internationally bestselling author of novels, non-fiction books and short stories, whose books have been published worldwide in dozens of languages. Her chart topping titles include What Have I Done?, Perfect Daughter, My Husband’s Wife, The Girl in the Corner and her latest is the wonderful Swimming to Lundy. We talked to her about magic, library love, literary Christmas gift ideas, the joy of annuals and the genius of Maeve Binchy. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Preorder your copy of Daisy's Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and visit Daisy's Substack to find out about her live dates. The episode is sponsored by Serious Readers. To get £100 off your HD Serious Readers reading lamp (and free delivery), visit seriousreaders.com/booked and use the code: BOOKED at checkout.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Amanda Prowse - Swimming to Lundy

Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds

The Bunty Annual

The Mandy Annual

The Beano Annual

Jackie - 60 Years of Magic

Jill Mansell - Promise Me

Katie Hickman - She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen: British Women in India

Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Women Who Run With the Wolves

Armistead Maupin - Tales of the City

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Dorothy Whipple - High Wages

Persephone Books

Louise Bagshawe - Career Girls

Shirley Conran - Lace

Danielle Steele - Palazzo

VC Andrews - Flowers in the Attic

Jilly Cooper - Rivals

Jilly Cooper - Polo

Jilly Cooper - Between the Covers

Rufi Thorpe - Margot's Got Money Troubles

Callum Robinson - Ingrained

Carol Ann Duffy - Three Wise Men

Chapter 34 Books

Dr Seuss - Oh The Places You'll Go

Cathy Rentzenbrink - How To Feel Better

Nigella Lawson - Nigella Christmas

Diana Henry - Simple

Nigel Slater - A Thousand Feasts

Jane Austen - Persuasion

Thomas Hardy - Collected Poems

Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Thomas Hardy - Far From the Madding Crowd

Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

Stephenie Meyer - Twilight

Joyce Lankester Brisley - Milly Molly Mandy

Joyce Lankester Brisley - Marigold in Godmother's House

Holly Bourne - So Thrilled For You

Holly Bourne - You Could Be So Pretty

Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Daniel Handler - And Then? And Then? What Else?: A Writer's Life

Bruce Omar Yates - The Muslim Cowboy

Shelby Van Pelt - Remarkably Bright Creatures

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This week we are welcoming podcast, comedy and writerly royalty to the show. It's the amazing Cariad Lloyd! Cariad is the host of the podcasts Weirdos Book Club, alongside former guest Sara Pascoe, and the award-winning Griefcast, plus a book based on the podcast You Are Not Alone. She is an actor, comedian and improviser and has just released her first children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe (plus another one soon - revealed exclusively during the show!) We talked to her about helpful reading habits, the importance of a great booklight, good books about grief and a surprising literary obsession (with a former guest). Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Preorder your copy of Daisy's Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and visit Daisy's Substack to find out about her live dates. The episode is sponsored by Serious Readers. To get £100 off your HD Serious Readers reading lamp (and free delivery), visit seriousreaders.com/booked and use the code: BOOKED at checkout.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Cariad Lloyd - You Are Not Alone

Cariad Lloyd - The Christmas Wishtastrophe

Lili Anolik - Didion and Babitz

JRR Tolkien - Lord of the Rings

JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit

Brian Jacques - Mossflower

Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes

AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh

Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales

Lynne Reid Banks - Fairy Rebel

Anne Fine - Diary of a Killer Cat

Terry Pratchett - Colour of Magic

Tove Jansson - Tales from Moominvalley

Astrid Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking

Nadia Shireen - Grimwood

Nadia Shireen - Billy and the Beast

Nadia Shireen - Bumblebear

Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Jill Murphy - Worst Witch

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights

Jeffrey Archer - As the Crow Flies

Roger Lewis - Erotic Vagrancy

Lucy Ellmann - Ducks Newburyport

George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders - Swim in the Pond in the Rain

Guadalupe Nettel - Still Born

Madeline Linford - Out of the Window

Tessa Hadley - Free Love

Joe Heap - Rules of Seeing

Hilary Mantel - Mirror and the Light

Charles Darwin - Bleak House

George Eliot - Middlemarch

Gabrielle Zevin - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

Douglas Stuart - Young Mungo

John Ransom - The Whale Tattoo

John Ransom - The Gallopers

Cariad Lloyd - Where Did She Go

Tom Percival - Ruby's Worry

Tom Percival - Meesha Makes Friends

Tom Percival - Perfectly Norman

Julia Donaldson - Paper Dolls

Oliver Jeffers - Heart and the Bottle

Frances Hodgson Burnett - Secret Garden

Nikki May - This Motherless Land

Jane Austen - Mansfield Park

Nikki May - Wahala

Ann Patchett - Tom Lake

Ann Patchett - Bel Canto

Octavia Butler - Kindred

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This week we're delighted to bring you this delicious and delectable conversation with the amazing Rukmini Iyer! Rukmini is the visionary behind the multi-million-selling Roasting Tin series of cookbooks with the latest being the Green Roasting Tin. She is also a voracious and wide-ranging reader. We talked to her about Jilly Cooper, early, eye-popping reads, life-changing food writing and she reveals her secret, and surprising passion. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Order your copy of The Book Lovers Journal HERE. Find out more about Daisy's Read Yourself Happy retreat at Aweventurer.com/daisy. The episode is sponsored by Serious Readers. To get £100 off your HD Serious Readers reading lamp (and free delivery), visit seriousreaders.com/booked and use the code: BOOKED at checkout.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Rukmini Iyer - The Roasting Tin

Rukmini Iyer - The Green Roasting Tin

Miye Lee - Dallergut Dream Department Store

Gabrielle Zevin - Storied Life of AJ Fikry

Gabrielle Zevin - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

TS Eliot - Waste Land Facsimile

Much Ado Bookshop

Taffy Brodesser-Akner - Fleishman is in Trouble

Robert Lowell - Imitations

Homer (Trans: Emily Wilson) - Odyssey

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

Roberto Bolano - 2666

Paul Beatty - The Sellout

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights

Francesa Segal - Welcome to Glorious Tuga

Jilly Cooper - Rivals

John Lanchester - The Debt To Pleasure

MFK Fisher - Gastronomical Me

Bee Wilson - Consider the Fork

Bee Wilson - The Way We Eat Now

Tim Spector - Food For Life

Chris van Tulleken - Ultra Processed People

Sanjana Modha - Sanjana Feasts

Lucy Mangan - Bookworm

Eve Garnett - Family At One End Street

David Niven - Moon's a Balloon

Caitlin Moran - How To Be a Woman

Stewart Granger - Sparks Fly Up

Roger Lewis - Erotic Vagrancy

Kate Andersen Brower - Elizabeth Taylor

Stefan Zweig - Beware of Pity

Various - Book Lovers Journal 2025

Noel Streatfeild - Saplings

Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes

Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry

Noel Streatfeild - A Vicarage Family

Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

Lizzy Stewart - Alison

Jane Oliver - Business as Usual

Dorothy Whipple - High Wages

Min Jin Lee - Free Food for Millionaires

Min Jin Lee - Pachinko

Laurie colwin - Home Cooking

Laurie Colwin - More Home Cooking

Laurie Colwin - Happy all the Time

India Knight - Darling

Nancy Mitford - Pursuit of Love

Rukmini Iyer - Quick Roasting Tin

Rukmini Iyer - Green Barbecue

Time Life Editors - Patisserie

Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Diary

Rukmini Iyer - Sweet Roasting Tin

Bee Wilson - Swindled

Rukmini Iyer - Roasting Tin Around the World

Ruby Tandoh - Cook as You Are

Ruby Tandoh - Eat Up

Diana Vreeland - DV

Diana Vreeland - Memos

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This week we welcome another publishing legend onto the podcast. It's the amazing Liane Moriarty! Liane has sold over 20 million books worldwide and her novels have been translated into forty languages. Her blockbusters Big Little Lies, Apples Never Fall and Nine Perfect Strangers have been adapted into hugely successful TV shows. Her latest novel is the gripping, mysterious Here One Moment. We talked to her about her fellow novelist sisters, extended literary universes, the first book to make her cry and a particularly disturbing sex scene from Jaws. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Order your copy of The Book Lovers Journal HERE. Preorder your copy of Daisy's Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and find out about Daisy's Creative Confidence Clinic writing course at Daisy's Substack.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Liane Moriarty - Nine Perfect Strangers

Liane Moriarty - Big Little Lies

Liane Moriarty - Here One Moment

Anna Quindlen - After Annie

Barbara Comyns - Our Spoons Came From Woolworths

Ethel Turner - Seven Little Australians

PL Travers - Mary Poppins

Peter Benchley - Jaws

Michael Coleman - One, Two, Three, Oops!

LM Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables

LM Montgomery - Emily of New Moon

Joanna Trollope - The Choir

Alice Winn - In Memoriam

Rebecca Makkai - Great Believers

Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

Catherine Newman - Sandwich

Maeve Binchy - Light a Penny Candle

Michelle Gallen - Factory Girls

Claire Lombardo - Same as it Ever Was

Claire Lombardo - Most Fun We Ever Had

Anne Tyler - Accidental Tourist

Shelia Heti - Motherhood

Ottessa Moshfegh - My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Daisy Buchanan - Insatiable

Karen Joy Fowler - Booth

Mary Wesley - A Sensible Life

Mary Wesley - Camomile Lawn

Daisy Buchanan - Careering

Daisy Buchanan - Pity Party

Lizzy Stewart - Alison

Barbara Trapido - Noah's Ark

Barbara Trapido - Traveling Hornplayer

Barbara Trapido - Brother of the More Famous Jack

Marian Keyes - My Favourite Mistake

Marian Keyes - Rachels Holiday

Marian Keyes - Again Rachel

Marian Keyes - Anybody Out There

Nicola Moriarty - You Need To Know

Jaclyn Moriarty - Gravity is the Thing

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Kate Atkinson - Life After Life

Audrey Niffenegger - Time Traveler's Wife

Dorothy Whipple - High Wages

Barbara Pym - Excellent Women

Nina Stibbe - Love Nina

Jane Harper - The Dry

Sally Hepworth - The Family Next Door

Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train

Patricia Highsmith - Diaries

Katherine Heiny - Standard Deviation

Lionel Shriver - We Need To Talk About Kevin

Sally Rooney - Intermezzo

Emma Forrest - Father Figure

Matt Haig - Midnight Library

Cesca Major - Maybe Next Time

Bella Mackie - What a Way to Go

Mary Beth Keane - The Half Moon

Mary Lawson - Crow Lake

Elizabeth Berg - Say When

Jo Jo Moyes - Someone Else's Shoes

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This week on the podcast we're entertaining one of our favourite writers and one of our favourite people. The brilliant Holly Williams! Holly is a journalist and author who writes about books and theatre for everyone from The Observer to the New York Times and is the author of two fantastic novels, What Time is Love and The Start of Something. We traveled to Holly's wonderful Sheffield home and talked to her about the Tolstoy family dynasty, cosy planning. life lessons from Marian Keyes, generating a poetry habit and books so engrossing you miss your train connection. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Order your copy of The Book Lovers Journal HERE. Preorder your copy of Daisy's new book Read Yourself Happy.

BOOKS

Holly Williams - What Time is Love

Holly Williams - Start of Something

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

Holly Williams - Living With Leo

Ali Smith - Winter

Ali Smith - How To Be Both

Zadie Smith - On Beauty

Ted Hughes - Selected Poems

Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems

Paul Muldoon - Selected Poems

Don Paterson - Selected Poems

Julia Cameron - Artist's Way

Ocean Vuong - Time is a Mother

Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Helen Mort - Illustrated Woman

Hannah Sullivan - Three Poems

Sharon Olds - Stag's Leap

Ross Gay - The Book of Delights

JB Priestly - Delight

RC Sherriff - Fortnight in September

Lauren Bravo - Preloved

Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan - So Late in the Day

Daisy Buchanan - Limelight

Bernadine Evaristo - Girl Woman Other

Katherine Heiny - Games and Rituals

Katherine Heiny - Single, Carefree, Mellow

Katherine Heiny - Standard Deviation

Katherine Heiny - Early Morning Riser

Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Marian Keyes - This Charming Man

Marian Keyes - Again Rachel

Marian Keyes - Rachel's Holiday

Celia Paul - Self-Portrait

Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story

Daisy Buchanan - Careering

Arthur Schnitzler - La Ronde

Victoria Wood - Chunky

Jesse Armstrong - Succession scripts

JB Priestly - An Inspector Calls

Christopher Marlowe - Doctor Faustus

Timberlake Wertenbaker - The Love of the Nightingale

Timberlake Wertenbaker - Our Country's Good

Peter Barnes - The Ruling Class

Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf - Diaries

Virginia Woolf - Letters

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Various - Weird Walk

Jilly Cooper - Riders

Kathryn Scanlan - Kick the Latch

Rita Bullwinkel - Headshot

Ottessa Moshfegh - Lapvona

Jen Calleja - Vehicle

Akwaeke Emezi - You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty

Lizzy Stewart - Alison

Adrian Tomine - New York Drawings

Ella Frears - Goodlord

Philip Pullman - Book of Dust

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights

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More legends of literature are dropping by as we welcome bestselling author and crime icon Paula Hawkins! Paula's first book was the phenomenal The Girl on the Train which sold over 20 million copies and was translated into over 50 languages. She followed it up with the bestsellers Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning. Her latest is the highly anticipated The Blue Hour. We talked to her about art books, the writers so good they make you want to give up, great authors from Zimbabwe and being disappointed by a lack of Wombles. Find out more about all the books mentioned by visiting our Bookshop.org store. Preorder your copy of Daisy's new book Read Yourself Happy by contacting The Margate Bookshop and see book tour dates and find out about Daisy's Creative Confidence Clinic writing course at Daisy's Substack.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - Read Yourself Happy

Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins - The Blue Hour

Eleanor Clayton - Barbara Hepworth

Celia Paul - Self Portrait

Patrick Elliot - Joan Eardley

Walter De La Mare - The Three Royal Monkeys

Enid Blyton - The Famous Five

Enid Blyton - Mallory Towers

Elisabeth Beresford - The Wombles

Joan Aiken - Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Geoffrey of Monmouth - History of the Kings of Britain

Ali Smith - Autumn

Zadie Smith - Intimations

Sarah Moss - The Fell

Sigrid Nunez - The Friend

Sigrid Nunez - What Are You Going Through

Sigrid Nunez - The Vulnerables

Benjamin Moser - Sontag

Sigrid Nunez - Sempre Susan

Kate Atkinson - Life After Life

Pat Barker - The Regeneration Trilogy

Pat Barker - Life Class

Pat Barker - Silence of the Girls

Pat Barker - The Women of Troy

Pat Barker - Voyage Home

Penelope Lively - Moon Tiger

Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley

Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train

Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None

Ruth Rendell - A Judgement in Stone

Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl

Rebecca F Kuang - Yellowface

Molly Keane - Good Behaviour

Caroline Kepnes - You

Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister the Serial Killer

George Eliot - Middlemarch

Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Colleen Hoover - It Ends With Us

Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends

Sally Rooney - Normal People

Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These

Carys Davies - Clear

Jonathan Abrams - The Come Up

Craig Brown - Ma'am Darling

Anne Glenconner - Lady in Waiting

Tsitsi Dangarembga - This Mournable Body

Tsitsi Dangarembga - Nervous Conditions

Petina Gappah - An Elegy for Easterly

Petina Gappah - Rotten Row

Raymond Carver - Cathedral

Kate Atkinson - Normal Rules Don't Apply

Elizabeth Strout - Olive Kitteridge

Evie Wyld - The Echoes

Evie Wyld - All the Birds Singing

Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional

Charlotte Wood - The Weekend

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