It’s Bookshelf time here at The Book Club Review podcast, when we talk about the books we’re reading outside of book club, the ones we get to pick and choose for ourselves. And so listen in to find out what Laura thought of The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd, a lesser-known backlist gem, A Place of Greater Safety, Booker-winner Hilary Mantel’s immersive doorstop about the French revolution, and The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison’s blend of court intrigue, goblins and steampunk. Meanwhile I’m reporting back on Babel by R.F. Kuang, the bestselling fantasy epic set in 19th-century England, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield, part bruisingly tender love story, part nerve-clanging submarine thriller, and Either / Or by Elif Batuman, the follow-on from her first novel The Idiot. It’s the continuing adventures of her protagonist, Harvard student Selin, and has been described as ‘a second year of love, sex, and books’.

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