The Readers

Let's try this week's episode again. 

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

Books That Teach Us Something () One of our diehard listeners Sarah had the following question for Simon and Thomas “are the books we love the most the ones that teach us something? By this, I mean teaching in many forms - it could be that we find a wonderful character that helps us to grow as a person, or it could be that we develop a fascination with a new place or landscape, or feel that we have evolved in some way after reading something meaningful.” Simon and Thomas try and answer this...

Favourite Author’s You Haven’t Read Yet () In the second section of the show Simon and Thomas talk about authors that they have never read and are sure they will be favourites, as requested by Ruthiella after a post she saw on Simon’s blog. They have a chat about those authors and why  they feel sure that they will love them.

Other Books Mentioned in the Show () Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Touching The Wild by Joe Hutto, The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, The Inevitable Gift Shop by Will Eaves, The Absent Therapist by Will Eaves, Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, Angel by Elizabeth Taylor, Ten Days by Gillian Slovo, Cleopatras Sister by Penelope Lively.

Next time on the Readers () The Readers will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more book based banter. If you missed the latest episode of You Wrote The Book do go and listen, Simon’s guest is Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan and they discuss her Wellcome Prize winning It’s All In Your Head. He will be joined next week by Charlotte Wood to discuss her incredible new novel The Natural Way of Things.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

Welcome to the latest episode of The Readers, which starts off meaning to be one episode and then ends up being another episode completely…

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

Random Tangents and Catch Ups () Initially this week was meant to be an episode answering two of our lovely listeners problems. However as Simon and Thomas actually hadn’t recorded in ages they just ended up having a really big tangential catch up which covers;  readathons, London, book prize parties, Simon’s book shopping spree with Gavin, rainy day reading, Thomas joining a library, whether you should be shaming your TBR, the timings of book buying, bookshops, republished books, shipped over books from overseas, the Baileys shortlist and longlist, scheduled reading, what they are reading and much, much more.

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more structured book based banter. Simon was also back with of You Wrote The Book last week when he was joined by the wonderful  Garth Greenwell to talk about his quite incredible debut novel What Belongs To You, do go and have a listen.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

Welcome to the latest episode of The Readers, where Simon and Thomas celebrate their official 150th episode with a game of bookshelf bingo!

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

Bookshelf Bingo () Thomas and Simon were pondering the right way to celebrate 150 official, though there have been a few extra, episodes of The Readers and Simon came up with the idea of Bookshelf Bingo. Listeners simply pick two numbers at random and Simon and Thomas find the books that correspond with those shelf and book numbers and talk about the books. Get ready for a lot of book chatter and whole host of book recommendations…

Here are all the books mentioned in the show…

The Edwardians - Vita Sackville West

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

Marry Me - Dan Rhodes

Gold - Dan Rhodes

Mrs Gaskell - Arthur Pollard

The Weed That Strings The Hangmans Bag - Alan Bradley

Surprising Myself - Christopher Bram

My Policeman - Bethan Roberts

The Finishing School - Muriel Spark

The Fox and the Star - Coralie Bickford Smith

Sunset Park - Paul Auster

Watson's Apology - Beryl Bainbridge

Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

The Girl with Glass Feet - Ali Shaw

Minotaur - Benjamin Tammuz

The World of Upstairs Downstairs - Molly Hardwick

The Natural Way of Things - Charlotte Wood

Family Values - Wendy Cope

The Ripening Seed – Colette

Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner

A Start in Life - Anita Brookner

Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan

Flesh & Blood - Michael Cunningham

Wait For Me - Deborah Devonshire

1984 - George Orwell

Ordeal - Nevil Shute

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

A Shower of Summer Days - May Sarton

Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier

Andorra - Peter Cameron

Some Kind of Fairytale - Graham Joyce

The Loved One - Evelyn Waugh

The Making of the English Landscape - W G Hoskings

Mystery in White - J Jefferson Farjeon

Human Voices - Penelope Fitzgerald

Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald

Scottsboro - Ellen Feldman

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

Mariana - Monica Dickens

The Happy Prisoner - Monica Dickens

The Tigers Wife - Tea Obrecht

In The Wet - Nevil Shute

The Queen & I - Sue Townsend

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

Under The Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes

The Birds and Other Stories - Daphne Du Maurier

Run - Ann Patchett

The Pure Gold Baby - Margaret Drabble

The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy

Delta of Venus - Anais Nin

A God in Every Stone - Kamila Shamsie

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more book based banter. Next week Simon will return with a new series of You Wrote The Book with Garth Greenwell - if you have missed the last ones do go and listen, his last guest was Joanna Cannon and they discussed her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

Welcome the first episode of an occasional special series of The Readers, where Simon is joined by a special co-host Eric of LonesomeReader, to discuss all things Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016, In this episode they introduce the Baileys shortlist 2016 having read the whole longlist.

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here. 

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2016 () In the second of a special occasional series around this years Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Simon and Eric have a catch up in a London park to discuss some of the highlights of this years longlist before going on to sharing their thoughts on this years shortlisted books which are...

Ruby – Cynthia Bond (Two Roads)

The Green Road – Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)

The Glorious Heresies – Lisa McInerney (John Murray)

The Portable Veblen – Elizabeth McKenzie (Fourth Estate)

The Improbability of Love – Hannah Rothschild (Bloomsbury)

A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara (Picador)

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back later this week for their ‘official’ 150th episode so keep your ears peeled for that. If you missed the latest (and last in the series) of You Wrote The Book do go and listen, his guest is Joanna Cannon and they discuss her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

An Expected Bonus Episode

Simon Hosted a 'Meet the Authors' event for the Wellcome Book Prize Shortlist:

Worth £30,000, the Wellcome Book Prize celebrates the best new books that engage with an aspect of medicine, health or illness, showcasing the breadth and depth of our encounters with medicine through exceptional works of fiction and non-fiction.

Attending the event were:

Speakers

· Simon Savidge (host)

· Amy Liptrot – shortlisted author of The Outrun

· Suzanne O’ Sullivan – shortlisted author of It’s All in Your Head

· Alex Pheby – shortlist author of Playthings

· Cathy Rentzenbrink – shortlisted author of The Last Act of Love

This year’s winner, revealed on 25 April, will be the prize’s seventh overall, joining an exceptional alumni including Marion Coutts and her critically lauded memoir, The Iceberg (2015) Andrew Solomon for Far From the Tree: Parents, children and the search for identity (2014), Thomas Wright for Circulation (2012), Alice LaPlantefor Turn of Mind (2011) Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), and Andrea Gillies for Keeper: Living with Nancy – A Journey into Alzheimer’s (2009).

The 2016 judges are author, journalist and broadcaster Baroness Joan Bakewell (Chair), academic and author Professor Frances Balkwill, writer columnist and salonnière Damian Barr, writer and academic Professor Tessa Hadley and award-winning writer and journalist Sathnam Sanghera.

Simon and Thomas will be back in two weeks.

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here. 

The Best of Irish () As St Patricks Day was looming as Thomas and Simon recorded this episode they thought that they would talk about Irish fiction – which in hindsight might have been a bad move as they realised they weren’t at all qualified for it. They talk about their thoughts on Irish fiction, from the limited ones that they have read, and what Irish fiction and writing means to them. They would love your recommendations of some Irish books.

Clever Books () In the second section of the show Simon and Thomas talk about ‘clever books’ either books that really are clever and do something quite unusual, or books that think they are really clever and actually need to be told they are not. They have a very clever chat about it all.

Other Books Mentioned in the Show () The Casual Vacancy – JK Rowling, Moby Dick – Herman Melville, A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara, At Hawthorn Time – Melissa Harrison, Victoria 4.30 – Cecil Roberts, The Green Road – Anne Enright, The Gathering – Anne Enright, The Good Son – Paul McVeigh, Brooklyn – Colm Toibin, Mother and Sons – Colm Toibin, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell, The Secret Scripture – Sebastian Barry, The Commitments – Roddy Doyle, Dracula – Bram Stoker, The Little Red Chairs – Edna O’Brien, Ulysses – James Joyce, A Girl is a Half Formed Thing – Eimear McBride, Hawthorn & Child – Keith Ridgway, The Secret Chord – Geraldine Brooks, With A Zero At Its Heart – Charles Lambert, What Belongs To You – Garth Greenwell, How To Be Both – Ali Smith, Shark – Will Self, The USA Trilogy – John Dos Passos, HHhH – Laurent Binet, The Wake – Paul Kingsnorth, Mitko – Garth Greenwell, A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James, All The Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld, The Night Watch – Sarah Waters, The Cauliflower – Nicola Barker, Fates and Furies – Lauren Groff, Any Human Heart – William Boyd, The Magnificent Spinster – May Sarton, Mothering Sunday – Graham Swift, Happenstance – Carol Shields, The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell, One Point Two Billion – Mahesh Rao, The Redemption of Galen Pike – Carys Davies, The Year of the Runaways.

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more book based banter. If you missed the latest (and last in the series) of You Wrote The Book do go and listen, his guest is Joanna Cannon and they discuss her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep. You Wrote The Book will return in mid to late April.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

Welcome the first episode of an occasional special series of The Readers, where Simon is joined by a special co-host Eric of LonesomeReader, to discuss all things Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016, In this episode they introduce the Baileys longlist 2016 before they read them all.

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2016 () In the first of a special occasional series around this years Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Simon and Eric introduce you to the longlist. They discuss the ones they have read and the ones they have yet to but will be, as Eric and Simon are working with the Bailey’s Prize as the Bearded Book Club and will be reading all of them. They will be back in a few weeks to talk about them all. Here is the list…

A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)

Rush Oh! – Shirley Barret (Virago)

Ruby – Cynthia Bond (Two Roads)

The Secret Chord – Geraldine Brooks (Little, Brown)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding – Jackie Copleton (Hutchinson)

Whispers Through a Megaphone – Rachel Elliott (One)

The Green Road – Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)

The Book of Memory – Petina Gappah (Faber & Faber)

Gorsky – Vesna Goldsworthy (Chatto & Windus)

The Anatomist’s Dream – Clio Gray (Myrmidon)

At Hawthorn Time – Melissa Harrison (Bloomsbury)

Pleasantville – Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)

The Glorious Heresies – Lisa McInerney (John Murray)

The Portable Veblen – Elizabeth McKenzie (Fourth Estate)

Girl at War – Sara Nović (Little, Brown)

The House at the Edge of the World – Julia Rochester (Viking)

The Improbability of Love – Hannah Rothschild (Bloomsbury)

My Name is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout (Viking)

A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara (Picador)

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in a week’s time when they will be back with more book based banter. If you missed the latest (and last in the series) of You Wrote The Book do go and listen, his guest is Joanna Cannon and they discuss her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.

Welcome to the latest episode of The Readers, which is a week later than planned apologies. In this episode Simon and Thomas have so much to talk about that they thought that they would make it a bookish tangential discussion of all sorts from Adele to the Baileys Prize, from The Tournament of Books to their holidays.

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

Catching Up About All Sorts () In this week’s episode of total catch up Thomas and Simon have a natter about the following…

Holidays – Thomas and Simon catch up on their recent trips to Mexico and Cyprus, one of them came back engaged so they have a chat about all of that and have a brief chat about snow too.

Julian Fellowes Has Really Annoyed Thomas – Yes, the writer of Downton Abbey has wound Thomas up because a) he doesn’t like the writing in Downton but also because of some of the things that he has been saying about Anthony Trollope and adaptations. Simon then chips in about Downton and Kindle.

TV & Music – Simon brings up one of his and Thomas’ new favourite topics, the television, as he has been watching another brilliant show from Iceland called Trapped. He recommends some Icelandic crime. He then discusses a few other shows he is looking forward to, then manages to make a literary link to Ru Paul’s Drag Race. He then discusses going to see Adele and All Saints returning.

Books and Oscars – Thomas and Simon have both been reading Carol/The Price of Salt separately recently so they have a chat about that and the return of Hear Read This which links to The Revenant, honest.

Deaths – Simon and Thomas talk about Umberto Eco and Harper Lee.

Classics on Audio – Thomas talks about classic he is trying to listen to. Moby Dick, The Adventures of Augie March, The Maltese Falcon etc. You can also hear exactly what Simon and Thomas think of Wuthering Heights.

Thomas Has A Question For The Readers – Can you help him find a book about a woman’s life in epic, written in the time by a woman… blimey!

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016 – The longlist will be out as this goes live and Simon is part of the Baileys Bearded Book Club with Eric of LonesomeReader. He discusses what this will entail and how you will be hearing much more about it.

How is Thomas’s Book Buying Ban Going? – Simon asks, you might not be surprised at the answer.

The Tournament of Books – Simon wants to take part in it, still doesn’t quite understand it but would like to know if anyone else is going to be reading these.

Topics – The Readers would like to know what you would like them to talk about in future shows?

Books Mentioned in the Show () Doctor Thorne – Anthony Trollope, Carol/The Price of Salt – patricia Highsmith, The Revenant – Michael Punke, Foucault’s Pendulum & In The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco, To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee, Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier, Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte, Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte, Moby Dick – Herman Melville, The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow, The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett, Sweet Caress/Any Human Heart – William Boyd, Letters Between Six Sisters – the Mitfords, Ban en Banlieue – Bhanu Kapil, One Life – Kate Grenville, Hollow Heart – Viola Di Grado, The Year of the Runaways – Sunjeev Sahota, A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara.

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more book based banter. If you missed the latest (and last in the series) ofYou Wrote The Book do go and listen, his guest is Joanna Cannon and they discuss her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep.

Welcome to the latest episode of The Readers, which is apology and special episode all in one. The Readers with Simon and Thomas will be back in full force on Wednesday but as an apology for the erratic schedule over the last couple of week The Readers is going to introduce you to Hear...Read This! and their episode featuring Carol by Patricia Highsmith.

Kate, Simon, Gavin and Rob talk about the book in two parts, first without spoilers and then (after telling you what they have been or are reading) talking about the book in more detail with spoilers galore.

Hopefully you'll  enjoy this in-depth and fascinating discussion of a fascinating novel.

Welcome to the latest episode of The Readers, which is a week later than planned apologies. This time on the show Simon and Thomas have been given the mission of finding and recommending books which might be ideal to those wishing to get into reading again. They also share the books they have read, are reading and what they want to read next.

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Good Reads and Facebook now as well as subscribing to us on iTunes here.

TV Catch UP () In this weeks catch up Thomas and Simon take their eyes off book briefly to discuss some of the great TV they have been watching, because sometimes even they need a bookish break. Have any of you been watching The Occupied, The Bridge or Making A Murderer?

Getting Back into Books () Simon had a very nice email from listener Ben who wanted to know which books would help him get back into reading. He loved HHhH, which Simon, Thomas and Gavin all loved too, and so wanted some suggestions. Simon and Thomas give him, and anyone else listening, some top tips and titles to get him back to reading in a big way. Have you any titles you would recommend for this?

Reading Horizons () As they haven’t for a while Thomas and Simon share the books that they have read, are reading and want to read next.

Thomas has read Melissa Harrison’s At Hawthorn Time, which Simon gave him. He is reading Victoria 4.30 by Cecil Roberts and is probably going to read a Persephone Classic next.

Simon has read Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff, as he wants to read lots of The Tournament of Books titles. He is reading The Turner House by Angela Flourney for the same reason. The book he fancies next though isn’t out until June in the UK and is The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson, all about Patricia Highsmith.

Other Books Mentioned in the Show () The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Richard Flanagan, HHhH – Laurent Binet, The Glass Room – Simon Mawer, The Lost City of Z – David Grann, Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier, Murder at the Vicarage and The Body in the Library – Agatha Christie, lots of books by Bill Bryson, lots of books by David Sedaris, All Involved – Ryan Gattis, The Pied Piper, A Town Called Alice and On the Beach by Nevil Shute, State of Siege – Eric Ambler, any British Library Crime Classics, The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell, anything by H.G. Wells, The Book of Strange New Things – Michel Faber, Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster, The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown, Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton, The Bees – Laline Paull, The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller, Becoming Unbecoming – Una, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth – Isabel Greenberg, Deliverance – James Dickie and The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Next time on the Readers () Thomas and Simon will be back in two weeks when they will be back with more book based banter. If you missed the latest (and last in the series) of You Wrote The Book do go and listen, his guest is Joanna Cannon and they discuss her wonderful debut novel The Trouble With Goats and Sheep.

Get the RSS link for the podcast by clicking here.

You can subscribe to our weekly podcast on iTunes here.