The Book Club

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the historian Tessa Dunlop. Tessa's new book is Army Girls: The Secrets and Stories of Military Service from the Final Few Women Who Fought In World War Two. She tells me about how she gathered testimony and formed friendships with the nonagenarian veterans of the Second World War amid the Covid lockdown; about the class-ridden rivalries between the women's services; and how while still not officially in the front line, women during the war nevertheless found themselves in the thick of it. 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.

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Armando Iannucci – the satirist behind Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin. What many of his fans might not know is that he's also a devoted scholar of Milton – whose influence is to be found in his first published poem Pandemonium: Some Verses on the Current Predicament. Armando tells me what hurt him into verse, identifies the moment that led him to abandon an English Literature PhD for a career in comedy – and explains why there's as much sadness as savagery in his mock-epic description of the Covid epidemic. 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.

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is Claire Tomalin. Claire’s new book, The Young H G Wells: Changing the World, tracks the extraordinary life and rocket-powered career of one of the most influential writers of the Edwardian age. She tells me how drapery’s loss was literature’s gain, why casting the goatish Wells as a #metoo villain isn’t quite right - and why we should all be reading Tono-Bungay.Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher 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.

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the historian Jane Ridley, talking about her new book George V: Never A Dull Moment. She tells me there’s so much more to the 'boring' monarch than shooting grouse and collecting stamps. Hear how he navigated some of the worst constitutional crises in memory, saved the British monarchy as the grand dynasties of Europe started toppling… and then inadvertently imperilled it again by his treatment of his son and heir.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.

In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by the historian James Holland to talk about his fascinating new book Brothers In Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiment's Bloody War from D-Day to VE-Day. James's story follows the Sherwood Rangers from El Alamein to the D-Day Landings, and on through the last push through Europe into Germany. He tells me how he put together this richly detailed account and what it was like, hour by hour and day by day, for the men who fought in tanks. 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.

In this week’s Book Club podcast my guest is Joan Bakewell, who talks to me about her new book The Tick Of Two Clocks: A Tale of Moving On. It describes how she made the decision to sell the house she lived in for half a century, and what it meant to her to face up to old age, and take stock of the past.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.

In this week’s book club podcast, I’m joined by Kate Lister to talk about her new book Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale. Kate tells me about some of the most celebrated sex-workers in history (and pre-history), the attempts that have been made to regulate the “oldest profession” - and where she stands on an issue that still bitterly divides modern feminists…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.

Chuck Palahniuk -- best known as the author of Fight Club -- has just announced that he's publishing his next novel not with a mainstream publisher but through the online subscription service Substack. He joins me on this week's Book Club podcast to tell me why; and to talk about how 9/11 changed literature, why he never tires of making his audience feel sick, and how he thinks David Foster Wallace might be alive today if he'd taken some time out to write a few Spider-Man comics.  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.

In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, a historian of psychoanalysis whose latest book is Freud's Patients: A Book of Lives. Mikkel has sifted through the archives to discover the real stories anonymised in the case studies on which Sigmund Freud based his theories, and the lives of the patients who submitted to analysis on the great man's original couch. What he discovered is startling. Mikkel tells me how Freud falsified the data to fit his theories, kept incurable cases coming back week after week to keep the fees rolling in -- and how the global industry of Freudian analysis resembles a religious cult more than a science. 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.

This week, I’m joined by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst - whose latest book is The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World. He tells me how 1851 - the year of the Great Exhibition - served as a pivot in Dickens’s own life, and set him on the path to writing Bleak House.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.