
The Bookshelf John Lanchester: Look What You Made Me Do + Lauren Groff: Brawler + Mary Costello: A Beautiful Loan (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tim Rogers)
Mar 20, 2026
58:50
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
