The Mr B's Bookshop

The novel Dodgers was one of our favourite novels of 2016, a surprising and elegantly-tuned coming of age story disguised as a crime novel. Jess talks to its author Bill Beverly about the road trip at the centre of the story, and we recommend other superb reads which will take you off the beaten track, and unto the unending road.

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson

Music: 'Star of the River' by The Bookshop Band

Books mentioned in this episode:

Dodgers by Bill Beverly

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

Native Son by Richard Wright

Home by Toni Morrison

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

Almost Heaven by Martin Fletcher

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

Butterflies in November by Audur Ava Olafsdottir

How's the Pain? by Pascal Garnier

The Shiralee by D'Arcy Niland

Some of us love being introduced to a plethora of characters in our fiction reads, whereas some can't think of anything better than being swept up by a single voice, and one experience of the world. We talk to Cynan Jones, whose novel Cove follows the joys and sorrows of one desolate man in a kayak, and recommend other favourite tales of isolation and loneliness.

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson

Music by The Bookshop Band

Books mentioned in this episode:

Cove by Cynan Jones

The Dig by Cynan Jones

I am Legend by Richard Matheson

A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume

Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes

Fire Season by Philip Connors

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

Other Tales of Isolation recommended by the Mr B's team:

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa

Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume

Hansen's Children by Ognjen Spahic

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Caribou Island by David Vann

Deep Country by Neil Ansell

We do love our lists at Mr B's. In this episode, the books we chat about are themselves made up of lists. Nic, Sam and Jess discuss the why's and why not's of anthologies of all kinds, and we also hear about a true labour of love, the creation of an anthology of contemporary Venezuelan writing. As always, listen out for Bath's unavoidable background-gulls...

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson

Music by The Bookshop Band

Books mentioned in this episode:

A Convergence of Birds, Ed. by Jonathan Safran Foer (Penguin Books)

Invisible Planets: 13 Visions of the Future, Ed. by Ken Liu (Head of Zeus)

The Moth: all these Wonders (Profile Books)

True Tales of American Life, Ed. by Paul Auster (Faber & Faber)

Litmus: Short Stories from Modern Science, Ed. by Ra Page (Comma Press)

The New Granta Book of Travel, Ed. by Liz Jobey (Granta books)

Best American Sports Writing of the Century, Ed. by David Halberstam (Houghton Mifflin)

Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare, Ed. by Daniel Hahn, Margarita Valencia (And Other Stories)

Dime-store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell by Charles Simic (New York Review of Books)

In Sunlight or in Shadow: stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper, Ed. by Lawrence Block (Pegasus Books)

Crude Words: Contemporary Writing from Venezuela, Ed. by Katie Brown, Montague Kobbe, Tim Girven (Ragpicker Press)

Other anthologies we love:

A kind of compass: stories on distance, Ed. by Belinda McKeon (Tramp Press)

Refugee Tales, Ed. by David Herd & Anna Pincus (Comma Press)

New American Stories, Ed. by Ben Marcus (Granta Books)

Sisters of the Revolution, Ed. by Anna and Jeff Vandermeer (PM Press)

Ed, Emma and Jess tackle one of the toughest questions in literature since 'what comes after post-modernism' and 'are dog-eared pages ok': what makes a good Western? Prepare to be introduced to some cracking classics in full cowboy-regalia, as well as a range of genre-bending contemporary frontier tales. We also talk to novelist and short-story writer Donald Ray Pollock about his most recent novel The Heavenly Table.

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson

Music by The Bookshop Band

Books discussed in this episode (including those we talked about which didn't make the final cut due to time constrains)

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey

The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock

The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge

Blood, Bone, and Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews by Ted Geltner

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden

St Agnes' Stand by Thomas Eidson

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Far as the Eye can See by Robert Baush

Dog Run Moonby Callan Wink

True Grit by Charles Portis

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

The Far Empty Todd J. Scott

This month we talk literary peaks and mighty vistas in some of our current favourites, starting with an interview with author Dan Richards. Dan is a long-time friend of Mr B's and author of Climbing Days, a remarkable journey in the foot-steps of the pioneering mountaineer Dorothy Pilley. Our Juliette Bottomley and Lucinda Corby also share some striking examples of novels in which mountains represent the utmost freedom as well as the depths of the underworld.

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson

Music by The Bookshop Band

Books and authors mentioned in this podcast:

Climbing Days by Dan Richards

Down to the Sea in Ships by Horatio Clare

Trieste & The Meaning Of Nowhere by Jan Morris

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

Mountains of the Mind by Robert MacFarlane

The Mr B's Podcast is back after its Christmas/New Year hiatus when we were all busy placing books into the hands of readers from dawn till dusk. It has returned with a slight difference.

From now on, each podcast will be based on a theme (think time travel, think revolutions and political upheaval, think the great tradition of letters written to people's pets…we shall try!), and they will include a short author interview as well as one of our signature Mr B's team book chats. Every episode is also accompanied by a unique reading list for your perusal.

To start off the year, we're chatting to S.E. Lister about her book The Immortals – a story where time is treated as place and the characters negotiate both in their attempts to find a home. Jess, Nic and Emma also re-visit some time-bending favourites – novels where history does not work in the usual way.

Music by The Bookshop Band

Books mentioned in this podcast

The Immortals by S.E. Lister

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Demi-Monde series by Rod Rees (beginning with The Demi-Monde: Winter)

El complot de los romanticos (The conspiracy of the romantics) by Carmen Boullosa

11.22.63 by Stephen King

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Christmas time is approaching and so is the Mr B's Christmas catalogue. Tom's favourite book of the year, featured in the catalogue, is a novel set in Spain, written in Swedish and translated into English. Breat Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is an inventive, edgy and darkly humorous tale in which the protagonist doesn't get a voice of her own, and in which everyone is always telling a story about someone else. Lina Wolff, its author, came to the shop earlier in the year and sat down to chat to Jess about brilliant girls in literature, Spanish gossip, and why there are no Swedish characters in her novel.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs by Lina Wolff

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

The Saga of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Music by The Bookshop Band

Novelist Yann Martel, author of the Booker prize-winning Life of Pi, joins us for a conversation about books, reading and the endless scope of art in making sense of the world. His latest novel The High Mountains of Portugal is out in paperback this month - a gorgeous story about loss, and the sometimes eccentric ways in which we deal with it. We also finds out about a very peculiar guerrilla book group, conducted once upon a time by Yann himself…

Books mentioned in this episode:

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Iliad by Homer, Transl. Stephen Mitchell

The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Franz Kafka

Music by The Bookshop Band

The weekend after the Brexit vote we decided to create a podcast celebrating European fiction. We felt that the best way to move forward in uncertain times, was to embrace the cross-cultural creativity which underpins so much of the writing we love and champion in the shop. We also asked our listeners to contribute with their own favourite reading memories. We hope you're inspired to read the whole list. Spot the background seagulls!

Books mentioned in this episode:

All the Names by Jose Saramago, Transl. by Margaret Jull Costa

The Burnt-out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen, Transl. by Don Bartlett

The Howling Miller by Aarto Paasilinna, Transl. by Will Hobson

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada, Transl. Michael Hoffman

Thinner than a Hair by Adnam Mahmutovic

Her Father's Daughter by Marie Sizun, Transl. by Adriana Hunter

Arab Jazz by Karim Miské, Transl. by Sam Gordon

Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig, Transl. by Anthea Bell

Read about more of the extended Mr B family's favourite European reads here.

We've been hosting a series of events under the theme of Revivals and Retellings. Here, Danielle, Kate and Jessica chat about some of the books that have grabbed their attention recently. As usual in our 'At Home' episodes, you can also expect a few palate-teasing tasters from the books themselves.

Books discussed in this episode:

Reader, I Married Him Ed. by Tracy Chevalier

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Rasputin and Other Ironies by Teffi

The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah

Lunatics, Lover and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare, Ed. by Margarita Valencia and Daniel Hahn