The Book Club

Stefan Fatsis, author and journalist known for Word Freak and Unabridged, turned reporting into immersive Scrabble reporting and play. He contrasts casual play with tournament strategy. He traces Scrabble’s hustling roots, the rise of software and memorization, memorable characters and rivalry over word lists. He also recounts family ties to the game and its evolving digital and corporate landscape.

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson, whose new novel Howl emerges from his rage and despair at the response to the 7 October massacre. He tells me what the novel can do that journalism can’t, why being funny is essential even in the darkest times, and why Zack Polanski isn’t the man he used to be.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/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lionel Shriver, novelist and Spectator columnist known for provocative fiction, discusses her new novel A Better Life and its hot-button treatment of immigration. She explains the book's premise about a New York hosting scheme. The conversation explores polarized reactions, research into plausibility, character ambiguity, and why topical fiction uses humour and dialogue to tackle big issues.

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the historian Jane Rogoyska, whose new book Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War tells the bloody story of the Second World War through the lens of Paris's Hotel Lutetia – following a cast of exiled intellectuals through the febrile 1930s, the increasing horrors of the war and occupation, through to the devastating aftermath as waves of prisoners returned from the camps. She tells me how she came to this unusual approach, how the connections between her cast of characters proliferated, how close Samuel Beckett came to a concentration camp – and about falling a little bit in love with Walter Benjamin. 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/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francis Spufford, novelist and essayist best known for inventive literary fantasies, chats about his new wartime fantasy Nonesuch. He discusses C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams influences. He explains building a vivid 1940s London, writing a female protagonist to push back on the Inklings, and mixing angels, occult Nazis and Technicolor romance.

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the philosophy professor Hanna Pickard, whose new book is What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction. She tells me why we need a new approach to ‘the puzzle of addiction’. She says the idea that addicts are helplessly in thrall to the compulsions of a ‘broken brain’ is wrong, that we need to understand how sometimes using even if it's looks like killing you can make a sort of sense – and describes how her own one-off experience of morphine set her on the path of trying to change the way we think about drugs.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/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eric Schlosser, investigative journalist and author of Fast Food Nation, reflects on his book 25 years later. He explores fast food’s rise, marketing to children, supply-chain consolidation, food safety failures, worker dangers, and what has changed — or not — since publication.

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Caroline Moorehead, whose new book A Sicilian Man: Leonardo Sciascia, the Rise of the Mafia and the Struggle for Italy’s Soul tells the remarkable story of one of Italy’s best-known writers – who used the pulp detective novel to shine a light on the social and political rot of his native land.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/podcastsContact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Schmidt, attention activist and co-editor of Attensity!, and Graham Burnett, scholar and co-editor and co-founder of Friends of Attention, discuss attention as a systemic crisis. They explore the $14 trillion incentive driving tech to commodify attention. They explain the human fracking metaphor, the history of attention science, and practical attention-activist tactics for culture and institutions.

Joanna Kavenna, an inventive novelist known for her philosophical fiction and author of Seven, discusses her unique approach to storytelling and game design. She shares her experience creating a board game that reflects complex community dynamics. The conversation tackles how AI challenges human playfulness and the limits of algorithmic life. Kavenna also explores themes of loss, consciousness, and the humorous balancing act in narrative structures, while embedding real-world memories into her fictional universe.