What if the most talked‑about streaming show of the moment was a mirror reflecting your most private fears and failures? That unnerving question sits at the heart of John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, a sharp novel about resentment, revenge, money, class and generational unease. Plus: the art of the short story, as Hannah Kent reads and reflects on Lauren Groff’s new collection Brawler; and a woman’s inner life rendered with quiet and devastating precision in Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan.

BOOKS

John Lanchester, Look What You Made Me Do, Faber
Lauren Groff, Brawler, Hutchinson Heinemann
Mary Costello, A Beautiful Loan, Text

GUESTS

Hannah Kent, novelist behind the phenomenon Burial Rites + The Good People, Devotion and Always Home, Always Homesick
Tim Rogers, author of Detours; frontman of You Am I, The Hard-Ons and various musical escapades. His solo tour Le Charme Defensif kicks off this week

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre,
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Michelle de Krester, Theory and Practice
Jacqueline Maley, Lonely Mouth
Erin Somers, The Ten Year Affair
James Joyce, The Dubliners; The Dead
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Colm Tóibín, The Magician
Steve Hanley, The Big Midweek: Life Inside the Fall

CREDITS

Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
Sound: Craig Tilmouth, Antonia Gauci
Arts editor; Sarah L'Estrange

John Lanchester: Look What You Made Me Do + Lauren Groff: Brawler + Mary Costello: A Beautiful Loan (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tim Rogers)