Up North Books

Happy New Year to all of our lovely listeners!

We're kicking the year off with a brilliant conversation we had with Stuart Evers at the end of 2020, all about his newest novel: The Blind Light.

Listen to hear more about the origins of this fantastic (and indeed, monumental) novel which spans decades of British history, beginning in the 1950s and meeting with the present day.

We encourage all of our listeners to seek out an independent bookshop to purchase Stuart's novel, currently available in hardback. Lots of shops are still delivering and would appreciate your business during such a difficult time. The paperback will be released in June 2021.

Buy via Bookshop Org here.

In this festive edition of Up North Books, we served up all of the book-buying recommendations that we think you'll need to shop for family and friends this Christmas.

Whether you're shopping for a Love Actually addict or the politically-outspoken northerner in your life, we've got 6 recommendations that should cover those who are a little harder to buy for.

In this episode of Up North Books, we decided it was time to shout out all of our favourite indie presses in the North of England and mention some of their books that we’ve loved over the years, as well as what we're looking forward to! The independent publishing community is strong in the North and is a key part of the industry — we must support them, particularly during such hard times. They’re often pioneers of new, diverse and marginalised voices which is a key step towards making positive change in publishing, so let's keep supporting that work!

Books and publishers mentioned:

Dead Ink Books

-Exit Management + Sealed (Naomi Booth)

-London Incognita (Gary Budden)

-Glitch (Lee Rourke)

-Test Signal (coming 2021)

-Cat Step (Alison Irvine)

Comma Press

-Resist: Stories of Uprising

-BBC National Short Story Award 2020 Anthology

-The New Abject: Tales of Modern Unease

Peepal Tree Press

-The Mermaid of Black Conch (Monique Roffey)

And Other Stories

-Theft (Luke Brown)

-Many People Die Like You (Lina Wolff)

-What You Could Have Won (Rachel Genn)

Bluemoose Books

-Leonard and Hungry Paul (Ronan Hession)

-Saving Lucia (Anna Vaught)

-The Gallows Pole (Ben Myers)

Fly on the Wall Press

-Mancunian Ways Anthology

-The Goddess of Macau (Graeme Hall)

UCLan Publishing

-Gracie Fairshaw and the Mysterious Guest (Susan Brownrigg)

-Kicking Off (Eve Ainsworth)

-The Witching Stone (Danny Weston)

In this episode of Up North Books, we're bringing you something a bit different. This week, in partnership with Durham Book Festival, we were very excited to get the chance to interview Mim Skinner. Mim is the author of Jailbirds, published in 2019 by Seven Dials. Inspired by her work in a women's prison, her memoir gives voice to women's experiences and rewrites the narrative on prison life. We asked Mim about the process of creating this book, as well as her newly commissioned piece with New Writing North, Camaraderie and Chaos.

Links to things mentioned:

Mim's book

Camaraderie and Chaos 

Citizen Song Writers

Durham Book Festival

In this episode of Up North Books, Beth and Kate discuss two brilliant new releases: Summerwater by Sarah Moss and Exit Management by Naomi Booth. This is a spoiler-free episode with some readings, diving into some of the key themes which come up in both of these books, including the phrases produced by Brexit and the way they have infiltrated our language. 

In the first episode of Up North Books, we introduce the podcast, ourselves as hosts and set out the reasons why we wanted to create this podcast in the first place. You can also find a rundown of four of our favourite reads from northern authors which we felt captured the spirit of the north when we read them. 

Our future episodes will be themed on different topics, genres or forms and each month we'll be discussing different books from the north.  

Thanks for tuning in! Follow us on Twitter:

@upnorthpod  @bethrdb  @whatkateread

Get in touch:

[email protected]