Books of the Year | Sam Leith & Philip Hensher
35 min listen
Sam Leith is joined by Philip Hensher to pick over their books of the year.
Sam Leith
Sam Leith is literary editor of The Spectator.
Today
Monday
Spotify wouldn't exist without the musicians it exploits
It used to be said that you could walk from the west of Ireland to Nantucket on the backs of the cod, so thick was the Atlantic with the fish. But as readers of a certain age will remember, by the last decade of the last century, it was looking doubtful that the cod population
Monday
What binds the celebrities featured in the Epstein files
The new naughty list just dropped, as the kids say these days. The pre-Christmas release of the Epstein files, or at least some of them – elves heavily redacted – has brought much-needed good cheer to all of us. Not every red face on Christmas afternoon will be down to port and brandy this year.
Monday
Why was this old man fined £250 for spitting out a leaf?
‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself,’ wrote Walt Whitman in his rhapsodic celebration of freedom, Leaves of Grass. ‘And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.// I loafe and invite my soul,/ I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.’ Dog walkers have complained of being asked to provide evidence of having poo-bags
Wednesday
Jonathan C. Slaght: The Journey to Save the Siberian Tiger from Extinction
49 min listen
My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Jonathan C. Slaght, whose new book is Tigers Between Empires: The Journey to Save the Siberian Tiger from Extinction. He tells me about these remarkable animals, the remarkable people who studied them, and how their fates have been entwined with the shifting politics of post-Soviet Russia.
Wednesday
James Geary: A Brief History of the Aphorism
43 min listen
My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is James Geary, talking about the new edition of his classic The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism. He tells me about what separates an aphorism from a proverb, a maxim or a quip; about the long history of the form and his
Wednesday
Leon Craig: The Decadence
29 min listen
On this week’s Book Club podcast I’m joined by debut author Leon Craig to talk about her novel The Decadence – a story of millennial debauchery in a haunted house which uses a knowing patchwork of literary influences from Boccaccio and Shirley Jackson to Martin Amis and Mark Z. Danielewski to make an old form
Wednesday
Benjamin Myers: Jesus Christ Kinski
36 min listen
Ben Myers joins Sam Leith to discuss his book Jesus Christ Kinski, which he describes as a ‘novel about a film about a performance about Jesus’. Klaus Kinski was one of Germany’s biggest actors of the 20th Century – but he was also one of the most controversial, and Ben questions if he was one of
Wednesday
Wikipedia founder on his 'friend' Elon Musk & finding truth online
35 min listen
Sam Leith’s guest this week is Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust. They discuss why trust is such an important value for public debate, and how it can address polarisation in society. Jimmy addresses the challenge Elon Musk has posed to Wikipedia after the entrepreneur branded the
Monday
I'm a fan of the BBC – but even I'm struggling to defend it
Another Director-General bites the dust. And the number two with him. What a facepalm. What a honking, stupid, first-day-in-the office sort of error to make. What cost Tim Davie his job, and presents the BBC with its latest existential crisis, was not just an error: it was an unforced error of the most wince-making kind. Defenders of the BBC regard this as a confected row, a political
Wednesday
Graham Robb: The Discovery of Britain
40 min listen
Sam Leith’s guest this week is Graham Robb. In his new book The Discovery of Britain: An Accidental History, Graham takes us on a time-travelling bicycle tour of the island’s history. They discuss how Graham weaves together personal memories with geography and history, his ‘major cartographic scoop’ which unlocks Iron Age Britain and contemporary debates about
Monday
Welcome to the age of the troll
We’re accustomed, by now, to Catholic priests having eccentric hobbies. Even so, 57-year-old Father Mark Rowles turned out to have a humdinger. At the end of last week, he admitted in court that while, by day, he was a sad sack of a man in late middle age with thinning hair and specs who ministered to a congregation in
Wednesday
Nat Jansz: Comet in Moominland turns 80
36 min listen
Nat Jansz joins Sam Leith to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Moomin novels. The first of these, Comet in Moominland, was revised by author Tove Jansson a decade after the original publication date. To celebrate the anniversary Sort of Books, co-run by Jansz, is publishing this revised edition for the first time in English.
Monday
Max Jeffery, Sam Leith, Michael Henderson, Madeline Grant & Julie Bindel
37 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery examines Britain’s new hard left alliance; Sam Leith wonders what Prince Andrew is playing; Michael Henderson reads his letter from Berlin; Madeline Grant analyses the demise of the American ‘wasp’ – or White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant; and, Julie Bindel ponders the disturbing allure of sex robots. Produced and
In praise of the Children's Booker Prize
The Booker Foundation announced on Friday what it called its most ambitious project in twenty years: the launch of a Children’s Booker Prize. Well, heavens: what am I to do with that? As a columnist, most of my business is moaning and carping. Happiness, as it is said, writes white, and the default position of the comment hack in search of a subject is
Thursday
Why I love blowing up worms
Grade: B+ War, as we all know, is hell. But if it involves small squeaky annelids blowing each-other up with bazookas, it is also hella fun. And so to the newest installment in the long-running turn-based strategy series Worms. Can it be a coincidence that Worms Across Worlds arrives on Apple Arcade just in time
Prince Andrew: from playboy to PlayStation
Oh God, not that. That’s all we need, I thought, reading in a long account of Prince Andrew’s current travails that ‘according to visitors to Royal Lodge’, he now ‘spends much of his time playing video games’. Even before all the unpleasantness with Jeffrey Epstein’s child-rape allegations, one of the Prince’s more embarrassing qualities was
Wednesday
Peter James: Jack Higgins's The Eagle Has Landed
40 min listen
Sam Leith’s guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is the crime writer Peter James. Peter has contributed the introduction to a new edition of the classic thriller The Eagle Has Landed, which is 50 years old this month. He tells Sam what it was that made Jack Higgins’s novel so groundbreaking, about what it takes to
Monday
In defence of the rules-based order
The last time I saw my cousin, the former Tory MP Danny Kruger, I found myself trying to ginger him up a bit. I said, which I thought then and thought now – and which I can’t think it is betraying a confidence to say publicly – that the low state of the Conservative party was a bummer for those who sat
Wednesday
Luke Kemp: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
48 min listen
My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Luke Kemp. In his new book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, Luke seeks lessons from prehistory to understand how societies grow and flourish, what kills them, and where we are now. He tells me what Hobbes got wrong, why ‘civilisation’ isn’t always
