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This week we're hotfooting it to Hampshire to visit the poet, storyteller, playwright and all-around inspiration Nikita Gill! Nikita is an acclaimed author with a slew of celebrity fans, hundreds of thousands of social media followers and devotees the world over. We talked to her about witches, conservation, goddesses, hedgehogs and, surprisingly, Jeffrey Archer.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Nikita Gill - Your Soul is a River

Nikita Gill - Wild Embers

Nikita Gill - Fierce Fairytales

Nikita Gill - Great Goddesses

Angela Carter - Fairy Tales

Angela Carter - Bloody Chamber

Madeline Miller - Circe

Stephen Fry - Mythos

Stephen Fry - Heroes

Joy Kenward - Joy of Mindful Writing

Arin Murphy-Hiscock - The House Witch

Arin Murphy-Hiscock - The Hedge Witch

Margaret Atwood - Penelopiad

Margaret Atwood - Blind Assassin

Jeanette Winterson - Weight

Jeffrey Archer - Collected Stories

Jeffrey Archer - Red Herrings

Alan Bennett - Untold Stories

Miranda July - No One Belongs Here More Than You

Jhumpa Lahiri - Interpreter of Maladies

Lissa Evans - Old Baggage

Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Lucy Ellman - Ducks, Newburyport

Nikesh Shukla (Ed) - Good Immigrant

Nikesh Shukla (Ed) - Good Immigrant USA

Poorna Bell - In Search of Silence

Brian Bilston - Diary of a Somebody

Visnu Sarma - Panchatantra

Homer - Odyssey

Ovid - Metamorphoses

Aeschylus - Oresteia 

Apollodorus - Library of Greek Mythology

Neil Philip - Illustrated Book of Myths

Madeline Miller - Song of Achilles

Robert Graves - Greek Myths

Pat Barker - Silence of the Girls

Natalie Haynes - A Thousand Ships

Devdutt Pattanaik - Jaya

Bibek Debroy - Bhagavata Purana

Amish Tripathi - Immortals of Meluha

Pam Ayres - The Last Hedgehog

Ana Sampson (Ed) - She is Fierce

Shivanee Ramlochan - Everyone Knows I am a Haunting

Rhik Samadder - I Never Said I Loved You

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This week we are heading to beautiful Birmingham and visiting the home of politician, author and feminist superstar Jess Phillips! Jess is the MP for Birmingham Yardley, previously worked for Women's Aid and continues to campaign for equality and recognition on a vast array of issues. She's also the author of two books: Everywoman: One Woman’s Truth About Speaking the Truth and Truth to Power: 7 Ways to Call Time on B.S. We talked to Jess about her adoration of Sue Townsend, misleading English lessons and the problems connected to buying books in the middle of the night.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Jess Phillips - Everywoman

Jess Phillips - Truth to Power

Douglas Coupland - All Families Are Psychotic

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

Margaret Atwood - The Testaments

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World

Sue Townsend - Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

Sue Townsend - The Queen and I

George Orwell - 1984

Roald Dahl - The Twits

Roald Dahl - Danny the Champion of the World

Roald Dahl - The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

Roald Dahl - Boy

Roald Dahl - George’s Marvellous Medicine

Roald Dahl - Matilda

Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Philip Pullman - Amber Spyglass

L. Frank Baum - The Wizard of Oz

PL Travers - Mary Poppins

Judy Blume - Forever

Judy Blume - Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself

Salman Rushdie - Satanic Verses

Madonna - Sex

DH Lawrence - Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Ada Calhoun - Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give

Caitlin Moran - How To Be a Woman

John Le Carre - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John Le Carre - Constant Gardener

Sally Rooney - Normal People

Caitlin Moran - How To Be Famous

Anna Hope - Expectation

Marian Keyes - Sushi For Beginners

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This week we are ensconced in the lush, historic offices of Faber and Faber (featuring framed, insulting TS Eliot memos) to talk to the comedian, director and author Richard Ayoade! Richard is globally recognised due to his roles in iconic shows such as The IT Crowd and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, he's directed two films (Submarine and The Double) and published three books, all on the theme of film - with his latest being a deep dive into one particular rom-com entitled Ayoade on Top. We talked to him about rom-coms and their deeper resonance on life, good plane reading, PG Wodehouse and the emotional impact of Happy Eaters.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Richard Ayoade - Ayoade on Top

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Brothers Karamazov

John Steinbeck - Red Pony

John Steinbeck - The Pearl

John Steinbeck -Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck -East of Eden

John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

William Leith - Hunger Years

Joe Dunthorne - Submarine

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Double

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Poor Folk

Curtis Sittenfeld - American Wife

PG Wodehouse - Ukridge

PG Wodehouse - The Jeeves Omnibus

PG Wodehouse - The World of Blandings

JD Salinger - Catcher in the Rye

Charles Webb - The Graduate

John Updike - Rabbit Run

Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar

Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

TS Eliot - The Waste Land

Wallace Shawn - Night Thoughts

Wallace Shawn - Essays

Joseph Conrad - Nostromo

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This week we're travelling to South-East London and the lovely, award-winning home of writer, stand-up and podcast host Jenny Eclair! As well as being a legendary comedian and familiar face on our TV screens thanks to shows like Grumpy Old Women and Loose Women, Jenny is the author of many books including the novels Moving, Having a Lovely Time and, her latest, Inheritance. We talked to her about the joy of audiobooks, writing habits, sub-par city guides and comedy versus writing.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Jenny Eclair - Inheritance

David Nicholls - Sweet Sorrow

Anna Hope - Expectation

Taffy Brodesser-Akner - Fleishman is in Trouble

John Niven - Straight White Male

Tayari Jones - An American Marriage

Clare Mackintosh - After The End

Kat Gordon - An Unsuitable Woman

Cressida Connolly - After The Party

Lynne Reid Banks - The L Shaped Room

Nancy Mitford - The Pursuit of Love

Jane Gardam - Old Filth

Jenny Eclair - The Book of Bad Behaviour

Erin Kelly - Stone Mothers

Erin Kelly - He Said She Said

Jonathan Coe - What a Carve Up

Jonathan Coe - Middle England

Ayisha Malik - This Green and Pleasant Land

Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

Anna Burns - Milkman

Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and the Six

Andrea Lawlor - Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Raymond Chandler - Farewell My Lovely

Jenny Eclair - Moving

Sue Townsend - Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

Nina Stibbe - Love Nina

Jamie Oliver - 5 Ingredients

Yotam Ottolenghi - Simple

Barbara Kingsover - The Lacuna

Bruno Vincent - Five Go Parenting

Jill Dawson - The Language of Birds

Jill Dawson - Fred and Edie

Alice Munro - Selected Stories

Phoebe Eclair-Powell - National Theatre Connections

Jenny Eclair - Grumpy Old Couples

Shappi Khorsandi - Nina is Not OK

Jennifer Egan - Visit From the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan - Manhattan Beach

Mary Roach - Bonk

Charlotte Roche- Wetlands

Leïla Slimani - Adele

Leïla Slimani- Lullaby

Robert Galbraith - Lethal White

Jilly Cooper - Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

David Friend - Vanity Fair’s Hollywood

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We're back in leafy North London to visit the lovely (if slightly damaged - as she explains) home of author Tracy Chevalier! Tracy is the enormously successful novelist behind such books as The Lady and the Unicorn, Burning Bright and, most famously, the mega-hit Girl with a Pearl Earring. We talked to Tracy about her latest book A Single Thread plus hardcore book organisation, emulating Margaret Atwood, gifts from fans and book resolutions.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Tracy Chevalier - A Single Thread

Tracy Chevalier - Girl With a Pearl Earring

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

Jean-Paul Didierlaurent - The Reader on the 6.27

Susan Sontag - On Photography

Colson Whitehead - The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad

Tana French - Wych Elm

Sophie Mackintosh - The Water Cure

Julian Barnes - Flaubert’s Parrot

JL Carr - A Month in the Country

Jan Morris - Venice

Judith Mackrell - Unfinished Palazzo

Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch

Margaret Drabble - The Needle’s Eye

Anne Tyler - Tin Can Tree

Mary Wollstonecraft- Original Stories

Tracy Chevalier - Burning Bright

Laura Ingalls Wilder - Farmer Boy

Dylan Thomas - Poems of…

Tracy Chevalier - The Lady and the Unicorn

Tracy Chevalier - At the Edge of the Orchard

Tracy Chevalier - The Last Runaway

Helen Ellis - Southern Lady Code

Margaret Atwood - The Testaments

Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale

Elizabeth Gilbert - Big Magic

EM Forster - Howards End

Jane Harris - The Observations

Jane Harris - Gillespie and I

Lorrie Moore - A Gate at the Stairs

Lorrie Moore - Bark

Lorrie Moore - Self Help

Lisa Taddeo - Three Women

Taffy Brodesser-Akner - Fleishman Is in Trouble

Sarah Waters - Fingersmith

F Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Norman Collins - London Belongs To Me

Margaret Atwood - Surfacing

Margaret Atwood - Life Before Man

Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America

Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna

Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken

Sjon - The Blue Fox

Sena Jeter Naslund - Ahab’s Wife

Carola Hicks - The Girl in the Green Gown

Hermione Lee - Edith Wharton

Lyndall Gordon - Lives Like Loaded Guns

Karen Armstrong - Bible: The Biography

Sarah Bakewell - How To Live

Craig Brown - Ma’am Darling

Bart van Es - The Cut Out Girl

Elaine Dundy - Life Itself!

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We're kicking off season 4 in style by visiting the beautiful North London home of the magnificent David Nicholls! As we are sure you are aware, David is massively bestselling internationally renowned author of novels such as One Day, Us and most recently Sweet Sorrow as well adapting work such as Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose and Great Expectations for the screen. We spoke to David about being an understudy, Dickens, adaptation and Billy Wilder.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

David Nicholls - One Day

David Nicholls - Starter For Ten

David Nicholls - The Understudy

David Nicholls - Us

David Nicholls - Sweet Sorrow

Jean De Brunhoff - Colourful World of Babar

Daniel Rosenthal - National Theatre Story

Tobias Wolff - Stories of

Edward St Aubyn - Never Mind

Roald Dahl - Danny the Champion of the World

Ford Maddox Ford - The Good Soldier

Patrick Hamilton - Hangover Square

Muriel Spark - Girls of Slender Means

Muriel Spark - Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Muriel Spark - The Driver’s Seat

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend

Lucia Berlin - Evening in Paradise

Lucia Berlin - Manual For Cleaning Women

Nell Zink - The Wallcreeper

Nell Zink - Mislaid

Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

John Cheever - Stories

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Ubervilles

Phillip Larkin - A Girl in Winter

Phillip Larkin - Jill

Milan Kundera - Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Milan Kundera - Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera - Life is Elsewhere

Alan Hollinghurst - Line of Beauty

EM Forster - Howards End

Helen Garner - The Spare Room

Helen Garner - The Children’s Bach

Penelope Lively - Heat Wave

Penelope Fitzgerald - At Freddie’s

Choderlos de Laclos - Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Michael Ondaatje - The Conversations

Cameron Crowe - Conversations With Wilder

Francois Truffaut - Hitchcock

Elif Batuman - The Idiot

Tove Jansson - Moominvalley in November

Lorrie Moore - Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

Lorrie Moore - Collected Stories

Zadie Smith - Feel Free

Philip Gourevitch - Paris Review Interviews

Joan Didion - Play It As It Lays

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This week we're back in Brighton to meet the sensational Dorothy Koomson! Dorothy is the author of 15 books including the best-selling and award-winning My Best Friend's Girl, The Ice Cream Girls and The Brighton Mermaid. Her latest is Tell Me Your Secret, described as "totally addictive, can't put down, rollercoaster ride of a story". We talked to Dorothy about the power of Jackie Collins, the importance of editing and the influence of Judge Dredd.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Dorothy Koomson - Tell Me Your Secret

Margaret Atwood - Handmaid’s Tale

Araminta Hall - Our Kind of Cruelty

Michelle Obama - Becoming

Dorothy Koomson - The Friend

Jackie Collins - Thrill

Jackie Collins - The Power Trip

Jackie Collins - Vendetta

Dorothy Koomson - Marshmallows for Breakfast

Donna Hay - Modern Classics

Lisa Faulkner - Recipes from My Mother to my Daughter

Dorothy Koomson - Woman He Loved Before

Elizabeth Gilbert - Big Magic

Dorothy Koomson - That Girl From Nowhere

Dorothy Koomson - Goodnight Beautiful

Judy Blume - Are You There God It’s Me Margaret

Judy Blume - Forever

Dorothy Koomson - The Ice Cream Girls

Penguin Poems for Love

Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic to the Stars

Sophie Kinsella - Can You Keep a Secret

Giovanna Fletcher - Dream a Little Dream

Giovanna Fletcher - You’re the One That I Want

Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic and Baby

Julie Cohen - Dear Thing

Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl

Linda Green - And Then It Happened

Linda Green - The Mummyfesto

Sareeta Domingo - The Nearness of You

Louise Doughty - Apple Tree Yard

Paula Hawkins - Girl on the Train

Stieg Larsson - Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

Stephen King - On Writing

Stephen King - It

Stephen King - The Green Mile

Stephen King - The Body

Stephen King - Carrie

Dorothy Koomson - The Brighton Mermaid

Jilly Cooper - Jump

Jackie Collins - The Stud

Shirley Conran - Lace

Sidney Sheldon - Other Side of Midnight

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We're off to South London this week to meet and chat to the fabulous Ayisha Malik! Ayisha worked in publishing before the publication of her first smash hit novel Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, described as 'the Muslim Bridget Jones'. She then produced a sequel The Other Half of Happiness and her new book, This Green and Pleasant Land has just been released to great acclaim. We talked to her about Rochester versus Darcy, religion in writing, childhood faves and terrible author behaviour.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Ayisha Malik - Sofia Khan is Not Obliged 

Ayisha Malik - This Green and Pleasant Land

L. Frank Baum - The Wizard of Oz

Lewis Carroll - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Angela Carter - Fairy Tales

Jane Austen - Persuasion

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen - Emma

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Nancy Mitford - Love in a Cold Climate

Nancy Mitford - The Pursuit of Love

Nancy Mitford - Don’t Tell Alfred

Muriel Spark - Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Muriel Spark - Momento Mori

Muriel Spark - Loitering With Intent

Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones’s Diary

Helen Fielding - The Edge of Reason

Monica Ali - Brick Lane

Norton Anthology of Literature

Graham Greene - End of the Affair

Graham Greene - A Burnt Out Case

Anita Brookner - Hotel Du Lac

Alex Khan - Bollywood Wives

Regina Porter - The Travellers

Nigella Lawson - Nigella Kitchen

Giorgio Locatelli - Made in Sicily

Brian Chikwava - Harare North

Fatima Bhutto - Songs of Blood and Sword

Kate Fox - Watching the English

JK Rowling - Casual Vacancy

Liane Moriarty - Big Little Lies

Richard Yates - Collected Stories

Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road

Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Grace Paley - Collected Stories

Richard Flanagan - Narrow Road to the Deep North

Adam Johnson - Orphan Master’s Son

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment

Elif Bautman - The Idiot

Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend

Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d’Ubervilles

Thomas Hardy - Far From the Madding Crowd

David Nicholls - One Day

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We're back in leafy London this week and visiting the beautiful home (including glorious bookshelves with a library ladder that made us green with envy) of Elif Shafak. Elif is a celebrated and award-winning novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels, including the bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, and Three Daughters of Eve. Her latest book is the critically acclaimed 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World. Elif is also an activist advocating for women's rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech. We talked to her about baklava, politics, Death Metal and stationery obsessions.

BOOKS (CLICK ON TITLES FOR MORE)

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World 

Elif Shafak - Three Daughters of Eve

Marco Pierre White - The Devil in the Kitchen

Samin Nosrat - Salt Fat Acid Heat

Jason Goodwin - Yashim Cooks Istanbul

Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities

Virginia Woolf - Orlando

Rowan Coleman - We Are All Made of Stars

Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend

Thomas Page McBee - Amateur

Elif Shafak - Honour

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

Esquire - Oral History of Bennington

Bret Easton Ellis - Rules of Attraction

David Sedaris - Calypso

Laura Esquivel - Like Water For Chocolate

Rumi - Selected Poems

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

Matthew Sperling - Astroturf

Ottessa Moshfegh - My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Sarah Krasnostein - The Trauma Cleaner

Will Eaves - Murmur

Cervantes - Don Quixote

Marian Keyes - The Break

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This week we’re travelling to leafy South London and visiting the glorious home of comedy legend Helen Lederer. Helen is probably best known as a trailblazing stand-up comedian and actress, appearing in such iconic shows as Absolutely Fabulous, Bottom, Girls on Top and Naked Video. But she is also a celebrated novelist and humour writer with her book Losing It nominated for the P. G. Wodehouse Comedy Literary prize. She also founded her own comedy prize CWIP - Comedy Women in Print. We talked to Helen about breasts in 1970s literature, the Four Marys, embarrassing teenage diaries and the power of funny women.

BOOKS

Daisy Buchanan - The Sisterhood

Nina Stibbe - Reasons To Be Cheerful

Nina Stibbe - Love Nina

Helen Lederer - Losing It

Muriel Spark - The Driver’s Seat

Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

EM Delafield - Diary of a Provincial Lady

Leslie Thomas - Tropic of Ruislip

Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones’s Diary

Susan Jeffers - Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Charlotte Mendelson - When We Were Bad

Melissa Broder - The Pisces

Annabelle Gurwitch - I See You Made an Effort

Noel Streatfeild - The Circus is Coming

Arianna Huffington - Thrive

Laurie Graham - Life According to Lubka

Laurie Graham - Mr Starlight

Laurie Graham - Gone With The Windsors

Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now

Lydia Davis - Can’t and Won’t

Helen Lederer - Coping

Jane Asher - Easy Entertaining

Enid Blyton - Malory Towers In the Fifth

Laurence Olivier - Confessions of an Actor

Helen Lederer - Single Minding

DC Thomson - The Best of Jackie

Sofie Hagan - Happy Fat

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