The Book Club – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.

The Book Club

The Spectator

Arts

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/7d. Total Eps: 489

Literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented weekly by Sam Leith.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Apple

Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
27/07/2026
#79
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
26/07/2026
#44
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
25/07/2026
#39
🇬🇧 Great Britain - arts
25/07/2026
#94
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
24/07/2026
#82
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
23/07/2026
#53
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
20/07/2026
#94
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
19/07/2026
#59
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
13/07/2026
#65
🇬🇧 Great Britain - books
11/07/2026
#95

Spotify

No recent rankings available

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/
491 shares
https://www.spectator.co.uk/follow-your-podcasts/
491 shares
http://www.seriousreaders.com/spectator
5 shares

https://open.acast.com/networks/68233d14f368620d4548ab93/shows/68358fb5e1abc4be6b0308eb/episodes/events.spectator.co.uk
2 shares

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_HHFMSmHCQ
1 share

RSS feed quality and score

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RSS feed quality

To improve

Score global : 48%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

Year

Latest published episodes

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Nicola Barker: TonyInterruptor

Wednesday, August 6, 2025 • Duration 26:34

Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Nicola Barker, talking about her new book TonyInterruptor -- about how a man who interrupts a free jazz concert becomes a viral sensation on social media. Nicola tells Sam why some of her books are bouts of the flu and some are sneezes, how hard she works on her apparently spontaneous prose, why she remains devoted to reality television — and about the time she went to visit Martin Amis with a ghetto blaster.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gary Shteyngart: Vera, or Faith

Wednesday, July 30, 2025 • Duration 34:38

Sam Leith is joined for this week's Book Club podcast by Gary Shteyngart — whose new novel Vera, or Faith is set in a near-future America whose politics seems to be less science-fictional by the day. It tells the unexpectedly tender story of a bright but lonely ten-year-old girl contending with her parents' failing marriage and navigating the beginnings of a friendship. Gary tells Sam how parenthood changed him as a writer, how his feelings about his Russian heritage have shifted uncomfortably in light both of the Ukraine invasion and the US's fresh hostility to migrants, and why Writers' Tears is his students' drink of choice.

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For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts and to contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Robert Macfarlane: Is a river alive?

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 • Duration 40:41

Sam Leith's guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Robert Macfarlane. In his new book Is A River Alive? he travels from the cloud forests of Ecuador to the pollution-choked rivers of Chennai and the threatened waterways of eastern Canada. He tells Sam what he learned along the journey – and why we need to reconceptualise our relationship with the natural world.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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From The Archives: Tom Holland

Wednesday, August 30, 2023 • Duration 45:05

As Sam is still away, we've dug out one our favourite podcasts from the archives. Back in 2019 Sam spoke to the historian Tom Holland, about his book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. The book, though as Tom remarks, you might not know it from the cover, is essentially a history of Christianity and an account of the myriad ways – many of them invisible to us – that it has shaped and continues to shape Western culture. It’s a book and an argument that takes us from Ancient Babylon to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room, draws in the Beatles and the Nazis, and orbits around two giant figures: St Paul and Nietzsche. Is there a single discernible, distinctive Christian way of thinking? Is secularism Christianity by other means? And are our modern-day culture wars between alt-righters and woke progressives a post-Christian phenomenon or, as Tom argues, essentially a civil war between two Christian sects?

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Celia Brayfield: Writing Black Beauty

Wednesday, August 9, 2023 • Duration 45:42

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the journalist and author Celia Brayfield whose new book Writing Black Beauty: Anna Sewell and the story of animal rights, takes us back to the 19th century. Celia describes how Anna Sewell's writing of the Black Beauty book ultimately led to the kinder treatment of horses, and we both recall fondly the popular TV adaptation with its soaringly emotive theme tune.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: The Wolf Hunt

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 • Duration 36:51

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the novelist and psychologist Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, whose gripping new book The Wolf Hunt tells the story of an Israeli-American mother who finds herself wondering whether her teenage son Adam could have been responsible for the death of a classmate. She tells me about using the thriller form as a Trojan horse, about fear and what we do with it, and whether, as an Israeli writer, you can ever escape from politics.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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James Ball: The Other Pandemic

Wednesday, July 26, 2023 • Duration 55:30

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the investigative and tech writer James Ball, to talk about his new book The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World. In it, James traces the rise and disturbing metastasis of what he calls 'the conspiracy theory that ate all the other conspiracy theories', and argues that what looks from the outside as an extreme set of fringe beliefs about Satanic paedophile rings running the Deep State is something we need to take very seriously indeed.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Ferdinand Mount: Big Caesars and Little Caesars

Wednesday, July 19, 2023 • Duration 40:11

In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Ferdinand Mount who in his long career has been literary and political editor of this very magazine, as well as editor of the TLS and head of Margaret Thatcher's Number Ten policy unit. We discuss his new book Big Caesars and Little Caesars: How They Rise and How they Fall, from Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson. He tells me why he thinks it's fair to compare our recent former prime minister with a cast of despots and autocrats from Indira Gandhi and Oliver Cromwell to Louis Napoleon and even Adolf Hitler, and why he sees the impulse to autocracy as an ineradicable thread in human history.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Caitlin Moran: What about men?

Wednesday, July 12, 2023 • Duration 51:31

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Caitlin Moran. Having written one of the bestselling works of popular feminism of the last 20 years – How To Be A Woman – she has turned her attention to the other half of the population with her new book What About Men? I asked Caitlin why she felt she needed to write such a book, and what qualifies her to do so. She tells me why she thinks young men are turning against feminism, what she says to the people who accuse her of trading in stereotypes, and why she thinks Jordan Peterson is a poor excuse for a 'public intellectual'.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Tom Whipple: The Battle of the Beams

Wednesday, July 5, 2023 • Duration 46:12

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Tom Whipple, science editor of the Times and author of the gripping new book The Battle of the Beams: The secret science of radar that turned the tide of the Second World War. He describes the ingenious technological, psychological and espionage battles that made electromagnetic warfare a decisive – if under-appreciated – contributor to Britain's victory in the air war and, finally, in the Normandy Landings.

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/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The Book Club – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

The Book Club – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other18

Acast1

Youtube1

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other18

Acast1

Youtube1