Guy Hayward is the co-founder of the British Pilgrimage Trust; half of musical comedy double act Bounder & Cad; and creator of ChoralEvensong.org. He is the co-author of Britain's Pilgrim Places.

Guy's introduction (2:20) Books on the bed (3:15) The personal and the professional (4:06) Slightly Chilly Man Festival (4:20) Promoting pilgrimage in Britain (9.20) How Guy got into pilgrimage (11:05) Why pilgrimage was outlawed in England (13:55) Reading differently (14:40) Roman dream temples (15.45) The symbolism of the Green Man (17:45) St George and the dragon and what it means in the modern world (19:30) God is an octopus and the childlike fascination of being back in nature (23:40) Britain's magical places and the connection with your consciousness (27:10) Hobgoblins and Christianity (33:10) Why pilgrimage is part of nature (35:30)

Reading List

The Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham

Initiation Into Dream Mysteries by Sarah Janes

The Green Man by William Anderson and Clive Hicks

Storyland by Amy Jeffs

A Philosophy of Walking by Frederic Gros

Plants of the Gods by Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann

How to Read The Landscape by Patrick Whitefield

Nature Works: Activating Regenerative Leadership Consciousness by Giles Hutchings

Wayfarer by Phoebe Smith

God by David Bentley Hart

God Is An Octopus by Ben Goldsmith

The Britannias by Alice Albinia

The Spine of Albion by Gary Biltcliffe and Caroline Hoare

The Confessions of a Psychedelic Christian by Sebastian Gaete

Thanks to exec-producer Melissa Fitzgerald and to Me For Queen for the splendid theme music. Thank you both for the support.

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Anna Kloots is a writer based in Paris. You may follow her on Instagram @annakloots already, more than half a million people do.

Anna's introduction (1:55) Miette's introduction (2:40) A measly bookshelf for a writer (4:35) Why books are meant to be given away (6:10) Doggy interlude (6:38) Books mirroring life (7:54) How divorce prompted her to write (9:18) The meaning of magic (10:14) The book to read if you are at a crossroads (11:28) The next best North American divorcé in Paris (13:08) Back to The Alchemist (14:30) At the pool at 10am, drinking wine (16:30) Finding humour in the darkest of times (17:10) An excerpt which hits her readers hard (18:40) Does improving yourself mean saying yes or no more? (20:30) Meeting readers at book readings (23:12) The power of a book (23:40) The only time colour-coded bookshelves are OK (25:20) Why audiobooks make you fitter (26:45) Favourite memoir of all time (27:20) The book she lost in the divorce (28:20) Can writers go too far? (32:40) Paris good stuff (34:00) Don't give up on your good ideas (35:28) Is it odd to not like fiction? (36:25) The literary dealbreaker.

Reading list:

The Diary of Anaïs Nin by Anaïs Nin

Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life by Cleo Wade

Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Measure of My Powers by Jackie Kai Ellis

Budapest from Assouline  

The Michelin Guide France 

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

David Sedaris 

On Writing: A Memoir by Stephen King

Live Your Life: My Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero by Amanda Kloots and Anna Kloots

My Own Magic: A Reappearing Act by Anna Kloots

The Little(r) Museums of Paris: An Illustrated Guide to the City's Hidden Gems

Harry Potter by JK Rowling

All the Light We Cannot See and Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

Huge thanks to exec-producer Melissa Fitzgerald and to Me For Queen for the splendid theme music. Thank you both for the support.

Additional music: Inspire by Wavecont | https://protunes.net/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Ewen is twelve years old. He is a keen scientist and ceramicist. He enjoys reading dystopian fiction.

Introduction (2:10) Concerns for mental health (2:50) Organising principles, or lack of them, of the book shelf (3:48) Favourite dystopian fiction and Katniss Everdeen (4:15) Surprise guest coming up in Season 3 (5:50) Philip Pullman's novellas and needing more time for reading (6:40) The point of no return in Animal Farm (7:35) Why David Walliams is a literary dealbreaker (10:00) A Hollywood movie in a book (11:20) Contemporary classics that you should read (12:15)

Reading list:

Being Miss Nobody by Tamsin Winter

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Firework-Maker's Daughter and Clockwork, or All Wound Up by Philip Pullman

Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan

The Rain by Virginia Bergin

The Undying of Obedience Wellrest by Nicholas Bowling

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Andrew is a rock critic, travel writer, foreign correspondent, radio host, and author. He mostly works for Monocle radio. Find him on Twitter @andrew_mueller and recently on BlueSky.

[2:12] Andrew's intro [4:07] The book he picked up at a bus stop that changed his life [7:30] Are conservatives more funny? [8:08] The troll who left his basement [9:10] Why American culture is the best [13:50] Does humour date? [14:49] The time he was sort of cancelled [16:15] Women writing about war [18:18] Meeting the pilot who bombed Hiroshima [21:57] The Pub Landlord [25:50] The Flashman Papers [28:55] Unorthodox ways of telling history and Laurent Binet [32:35] The supreme pleasure of correcting the official record [33:36] Australian rules football and what it says about Australian culture [39:43] The literary dealbreaker [41:04] His favourite self-help book.

Reading list:

Andrew Mueller - Carn: The Game, and the Country That Plays It

P. J. O'Rourke - Holidays in Hell

Christina Lamb - Our Bodies, Their Battlefield

Julie Wheelwright - Sisters in Arms

Samantha Power - A Problem from Hell

Paul W Tibbets - Return of the Enola Gay

Francis Wheen - Karl Marx

Laurent Binet - HHhH

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

George MacDonald Fraser - The Flashman Papers

Thanks to exec-producer Melissa Fitzgerald and to Me For Queen for the theme music.

Additional music: Legendary Epic Heroic | Heroic by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY 3.0

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Double whammy on Shelf Life this week: Demi Anter is a spoken-word poet and Pip Finkemeyer is a novelist.

Demi and Pip are leading a writing class on fact and fiction on August 13 in Berlin, and on August 21 in London.

Interests include erotic fiction, their favourite sad girl novelists and how fact and fiction often intermingle in their own work. Ex-boyfriends beware.

Reading list:

Their own work Small Machine by Demi Anter and Sad Girl Novel by Pip Finkemeyer; A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin; Know My Name by Chanel Miller; everything by John Berger, Maggie Nelson, Sally Rooney, Lydia Davis.

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Nicholas Bowling is a Costa-shortlisted author, bookseller and former Classics teacher.

Interests include Norse mythology, dead people, writing.

Find him on Twitter: @thenickbowling

A reading list:

His own books Witchborn, In the Shadow of Heroes, Song of the Far Isles and The Undying of Obedience Wellrest. Find out more here.

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, Tales of Norse Mythology by H. A. Guerber, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke; Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Kathryn Harkup, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Dog of the South by Charles Portis, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and anything by Cormac McCarthy, Virginia Woolf, Homer.

Shelf Life is presented and produced by Fleur Macdonald; exec-produced by Melissa Fitzgerald; while the music is by Me for Queen - thank you.

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Teo van den Broeke is a style journalist and author. He's also editorial director for Soho House. Sign up for his newsletter too.

A reading list:

His own book The Closet, Toast by Nigel Slater, How Not To Be a Boy by Robert Webb, Glorious Rock Bottom by Bryony Gordon, Pour Me by AA Gill, Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton.

Inside Vogue by Alexandra Shulman, The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake, The Chiffon Trenches by André Leon Talley, Anna by Amy Odell

And anything by Douglas Stuart, Donna Tart, Hillary Mantel, Roald Dahl, Rosa Rankin-Gee, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwen, William Boyd, Alan Hollinghurst, Hanya Yanagihara, Philip Pullman, Toni Morrison etc.

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Tomiwa Owolade is a writer, critic and author of This is Not America.

Find him on Twitter: @tomowolade

A reading list:

His own book: This is Not America

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Black and British by David Olusoga

The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

The War Against Cliché by Martin Amis

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson

And of course anything by Christopher Hitchens, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison etc.

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