Alice and Bethany talk through what they've been reading so far in 2024, and how not recording the pod has affected their reading habits.

Inspired by the New York Times' list of the 100 greatest books of the 21st Century, Alice and Bethany each compile their own top 10s, and find they have only one book in common, but don't agree on what that book is about...

Bethany's list: 

The Fact of a Body - Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt

Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan

Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

Crimson Petal & The White - Michel Faber 

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

Alice's list:

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado

Just Kids - Patti Smith

Lanny - Max Porter

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor

Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel

What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt

Alice and Bethany have the huge pleasure of talking to girlie of the moment, Eliza Clark, largely about her new novel Penance but also about true crime, Tumblr, the wild success of Boy Parts and its upcoming stage adaptation!

Alice and Bethany have the great pleasure of talking to Heather Parry about her short story collection This Is My Body Given For You, which is a gnarly little thing full of troubling images and ideas. She also talks about the great work she does at the Society of Authors, and lots more!

Alice and Bethany have the great pleasure of talking to the film journalist and programmer Anna Bogutskaya about her new non-fiction book Unlikeable Female Characters! They take a dive into the world of 'unlikeable' women through film and TV from erotic thrillers to Skyler White via the Hays Code and Amy Dunne from Gone Girl.

Bethany has the huge pleasure of chatting to Virginia Sole-Smith about her revolutionary new book Fat Talk: Coming of Age in Diet Culture, which investigates the radical possibility of abandoning our cultural fears around 'childhood obesity' to create bodily autonomy in children and beyond.

Alice's debut novel, Death of a Bookseller, is out NOW! So obviously Bethany had to ask her all the nosy questions about it!

Alice and Bethany have a whale of a time with the funny, smart Katherine Heiny, author of the new collection Games and Rituals, as well as the novels Standard Deviation and Early Morning Riser. Games and Rituals is out now!

Alice and Bethany atone for not putting out an episode for the first three months of the year by telling you all about everything they've read in the first quarter of 2023.

Alice and Bethany are BACK from their unplanned hiatus! And they've got a long, juicy episode for you about their favourite books of 2022, which obviously they should have recorded weeks ago... but didn't. Enjoy!