The Book Club Review

In this episode Kate is joined by Amanda Moulson, co-host of Curious Readers, to consider the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist. Ahead of the prize ceremony next week, which one do we think will win? Perhaps like Amanda you have read them all, but if, like Kate, you're going to struggle to get to all six, which ones should you focus on? Which are the standout reads? Which are the books most likely to delight, surprise, and stay with you long after you've turned the final page? We're covering all six books, and you’ll also find out what Amanda has on her TBR, the books she most loves recommending, and how a busy book podcaster organises her bookshelves. Timestamps for the time-poor 00:00 Welcome and Prize Preview 01:31 Meet Amanda Molson 01:44 Quickfire Reading Habits 03:18 Bookshelf Organization 04:06 Favorite Recs and Current Reads 06:20 Kate’s Power Broker Detour 08:54 Patreon Readalong and Book Club 10:12 Women’s Prize Context and History 15:09 Shortlist Book 1 Flashlight 20:51 Shortlist Book 2 Dominion 25:23 Shortlist Book 3 The Correspondent 26:31 Sybil’s Dark Past 27:07 Audiobook Clip Letters 29:15 Cozy Yet Dark 30:22 Famous Author Replies 31:14 Sybil Effect Debate 32:49 Craft and Book Clubs 33:28 The Mercy Step Setup 34:40 Mercy Step Clip 36:35 Child Narrator Power 37:12 Small Press Spotlight 38:01 Kingfisher Obsessive Love 38:50 Kingfisher Clip Warning 40:40 Kingfisher Reactions 41:35 Heart the Lover Clip 44:07 Two Halves Romance 45:36 Illness and Mortality 47:33 Marketing and Triggers 49:04 Winner Predictions 51:23 Wrap Up and Patreon 52:25 Kate’s Recent Reads and Outro Books mentioned Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate Open Book by Jessica Simpson A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken The Power Broker by Robert Caro We Are Green and Trembling Gabriela Cabezón Cámara Feminist History for Every Day of the Year by Kate Mosse The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Flashlight by Susan Choi Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick Dominion by Addie E. Citchens The Correspondent by Virginia Evans The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly Heart the Lover by Lily King Writers & Lovers by Lily King A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmeley Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel The Director by Daniel Kehlman The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby This is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin You'll find all the titles we mentioned in our Bookshop.org list. Buying books there helps support independent bookshops, and also supports The Book Club Review. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When the Guardian drops a list of the 100 Greatest Novels in English it's time to drop everything to talk about it. Luckily pod-regular guest, journalist Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance, host of the Curious Readers podcast, also had views, and were willing to get together on a Sunday evening to share them. You'll hear our hits, our misses, how many we’ve read, whether we should have read more and much musing on whether a list like this is the way to get people excited about reading. We explore the joys of the sub-lists – the contributor lists – all squirrelled away on a sub-section of the Guardian's website, that arguably provide more excitement and inspiration than the fairly canonical top 100. Which is the best Brontë? Which is the best Austen? Do we age into certain books? If you've read all seven volumes of Proust shouldn't that count for more than one entry? All this and much, much more. Enjoy – this was an absolute delight to make and I hope it makes you smile as much as it did me. Have your say: get in touch on Instagram @bookclubreviewpodcast or email [email protected], or head to our website for full shownotes. What would be in your top-10? Check out the Patreon for all kinds of extras, from our monthly book club to extra shows and Kate's reading diaries. Find it at patreon.com/thebookclubreview The Guardian’s List of the 100 Greatest Novels published in English, copied below for ease of reference. *underlined – the ones Kate has readMiddlemarchBelovedUlyssesTo the LighthouseIn Search of Lost TimeAnna KareninaWar and PeaceJane EyrePride and PrejudiceMadame BovaryThe Great GatsbyBleak HouseEmmaMrs DallowayMoby-DickNineteen Eighty-FourOne Hundred Years of SolitudePersuasionThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanWuthering HeightsThe Portrait of a LadyThings Fall ApartMidnight’s ChildrenThe Remains of the DayLolitaDon QuixoteThe TrialThe Brothers KaramazovPale FireFrankensteinThe Prime of Miss Jean BrodieThe God of Small ThingsDavid CopperfieldWolf HallGreat ExpectationsThe Handmaid’s TaleInvisible ManThe Age of InnocenceTheir Eyes Were Watching GodSong of SolomonHeart of DarknessThe Magic MountainHousekeepingGiovanni’s RoomThe Golden NotebookThe LeopardVanity FairThe MetamorphosisA Fine BalanceWide Sargasso SeaMy Brilliant FriendThe Golden BowlThe Transit of VenusOrlandoThe WavesMansfield ParkThe Sound and the FuryDisgraceNever Let Me GoHowards EndThe Rings of SaturnHalf of a Yellow SunWhite TeethThe Good SoldierThe Color PurpleThe Master and MargaritaThe Man Without QualitiesBlood MeridianCrime and PunishmentJude the ObscureKindredOur Mutual FriendAusterlitzNervous ConditionsThe Bluest EyeDraculaThe RainbowA House for Mr BiswasGo Tell It on the MountainRebeccaBuddenbrooksThe End of the AffairA Farewell to ArmsThe Talented Mr RipleyThe VegetarianThe Turn of the ScrewThe Line of BeautyRagtimeThe Left Hand of DarknessJacob’s RoomLife and FateSentimental EducationInvisible CitiesThe Known WorldThe Return of the NativePedro PáramoCatch-22The RoadThe Go-BetweenMy ÁntoniaParticular books we touch on in the showThings Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeUlysses by James JoyceIn Search of Lost Time by Marcel ProustMy Brilliant Friend by Elena FerranteWuthering Heights by Emily BrontëAs I Lay Dying by William FaulknerVillette by Charlotte BrontëOrlando, The Waves and To the Lighthouse by Virginia WoolfOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García MárquezMiddlemarch by George EliotPedro Páramo by Juan RulfoRebecca by Daphne du MaurierThe Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaNervous Conditions, The Book of Not and This Mournable Body by Tsitsi DangarembgaThe Transit of Venus by Shirley HazzardDon Quixote by Miguel de CervantesThe Magic Mountain by Thomas MannBuddenbrooks by Thomas MannLonesome Dove by Larry McMurtryBlood Meridian by Cormac McCarthyThe Memory Police by Yoko OgawaThe English Understand Wool by Helen DeWittA Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb SalihThe Princess of Clèves by Madame de LafayetteThe Cairo Trilogy by Naguib MahfouzThe Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō TanizakiThe Trial and Metamorphosis by Franz KafkaThe Go-Between by L. P. HartleyMoby-Dick by Herman MelvilleA House for Mr Biswas by V. S. NaipaulThe New Life by Tom CreweMiss Marjoribanks by Mrs OliphantThe Palliser novels by Anthony TrollopeThe Warden by Anthony TrollopeThe Man Without Qualities by Robert MusilThe Known World by Edward P. Jones See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the antidote to our increasingly frantic world isn't a grand gesture, but simply the act of paying attention? This week, Kate and Laura are joined by actor, podcaster, and author Miranda Keeling – returning to the pod to talk about her wonderful new book, The Place I'm In, a collection of the small, luminous moments she's gathered from daily life. After her debut The Year I Stopped to Notice, Miranda is back with more of her 'noticings': fragments from parks, supermarket queues, and streets that remind us how much magic is hiding in the everyday. Their book club read is the perfect complement: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Şavas – a soulful, quietly funny novel following Asya and Manu as they hunt for an apartment, trying on different futures for size in a city far from home. Asya, a documentary filmmaker, spends her days in the park gathering footage – an anthropologist of the ordinary – and her project rhymes beautifully with Miranda's own. Plus recommendations inspired by the art of the everyday. You can find out more about Miranda and her work at mirandakeeling.com, and her podcast Stopping to Notice – over 200 five-minute episodes of binaural location recording – is the perfect companion listen. Find all the books mentioned at our bookshop.org shop. And if you'd like to join Kate's monthly book club and reading community, head to patreon.com/thebookclubreview. Booklist Ashes and Stones by Alison Shaw – a journey through Scotland in search of the women killed in the witch trials Open Book by Jessica Simpson – Laura takes a nostalgic trip back through her twenties No Such Thing as Monday by Sîan Hughes – a brilliantly written novel from the author of Pearl; up there with Eimear McBride ( A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing) and Maggie O'Farrell The Anthropologists by Aysgul Savas The Imperfectionist, Oliver Burkeman's newsletter Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Flesh by David Szalay The Café With No Name by Robert Seethaler Memories of Distant Mountains (illustrated notebooks) by Orhan Pamuk A Nobel Laureate's journals offer much colour but little drama, by Dwight Garner for the NYT (gift link) Look Closer: How to Get More Out of Reading by Robert Douglas Fairhurst The Place I'm In by Miranda Keeling See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kate records the first live episode of The Book Club Review at the 2026 Barnsbury Book Festival, speaking with author and broadcaster Bee Rowlatt about her books, Mary Wollstonecraft, feminism, and the themes of wealth, power, and inequality in contemporary London.

The Book of Love vs The Dud Avocado: Fantasy, Paris & Book Club Verdicts In this episode of The Book Club Review, we return to our book club roots with two wildly different novels: The Book of Love by Kelly Link and The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy. The Book of Love is the first novel from acclaimed American short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link. In a seemingly ordinary coastal town three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle. Vulture magazine named it ‘the escapist masterpiece of the year’ but what did Laura’s book club think? Our second book-club pick is Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado – a fizzing, exuberant novel from 1958 about a young American woman let loose in Paris, determined to live life on her own terms. It gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living, a book that feels bracingly modern despite being nearly seventy years old. But did it make for a good book club read? We've also got some listener feedback on Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, we're catching up on recent reads, and the books we’re excited about next. Get more from the pod on Patreon Come behind the scenes and enjoy extra episodes, book club membership, community chat threads, readalongs, Kate's reading diaries and more, head to patreon.com/thebookclubreview Booklist You'll find all the books mentioned in the pod's Bookshop.org bookshop Bookshop.org list Slow Days Fast Company by Eve Babitz Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir The Book of Love by Kelly Link American Gods by Neil Gaiman What We Can Know by Ian McEwan The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett Other links of note One Grand Books Frances Ambler's substack See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.