Sam Leith

In this week’s Books Podcast I talk to the incomparable Claire Tomalin — veteran literary editor, biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft, Pepys, Hardy and Dickens among others --  about her new memoir A Life of My Own.  Here’s a book that contains extraordinary hardship — domestic violence; the loss of loved ones — narrated with cool fortitude in fine prose. She talks about the sexism of old Fleet Street, the unexpected liberation of widowhood, her renunciation of poetry, and the extraordinary satisfaction, in literary biography, of finding her calling. And why being married to Michael Frayn keeps her from writing plays… You can listen to our conversation here: And do subscribe on iTunes for more discussion like this, every Thursday.

In this week's Books podcast I'm joined by Alan Hollinghurst, the Man Booker prizewinning author of The Line of Beauty and The Stranger's Child. His remarkable new novel, The Sparsholt Affair, tells a story of three generations of a family from the Second World War to the present day. We talk about agonising over prose, whether there's any such thing as literary fiction, and why nearly everyone in his books seems to be gay. You can listen here: And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

In this week’s Books podcast, my guest is the journalist and historian Simon Heffer, author of the magisterial new The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880-1914. The second part in his trilogy of books about the Victorian and Edwardian ages, it works to explode the myth that the pre-war years were an endless Merchant Ivory Summer's afternoon. Join us as we talk about imperial decline, savage industrial unrest and aristocratic complacency… and how one writes a history of the years before 1914 without talking about the roots of the First World War. You can listen to our conversation below and do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

In this week’s Books podcast, my guest is the comedian and writer Robert Webb — whose moving and funny new book How Not To Be A Boy turns the material of a memoir into a heartfelt polemic about what he calls “The Trick”: the gender expectations that he identifies as causing many of the agonies of his adolescence and young manhood. What is it to be a man? Are we doomed to lives of inarticulacy, shagging, fighting and drinking — giving pain and fear their only outlet in anger? Sounds good to me — but Webb thinks there might be a better way… You can listen to our conversation here: And do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

The Man Booker shortlist is out. My colleague Philip Hensher isn’t convinced. He today tweeted 'Booker shortlist – McGregor, Z Smith, Whitehead, Roy, Barry, Shamsie. Oh wait – those were the ones they left off. Baffling.' But you can make your own mind up. Or, be guided by our critics.

The Baillie Gifford longlist – consisting of contenders for the country’s most prestigious nonfiction prize – is out today. A very good list it is, too. For readers’ ease, I’m affixing some links here to the Spectator’s reviews of the longlisted titles. We missed Souad Mekhennet (sorry); and a couple of them – Applebaum, Schama and Uglow – are forthcoming so will be reviewed in the next few weeks. Expect a review of Allan Jenkins’s allotment memoir when we consider gardening books at Christmas.

A N Wilson’s new biography of Darwin was acclaimed in these pages by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst for having a 'scientist’s forensic skill and a novelist’s imaginative touch'; but, he warned, it was likely to 'put the felis catus among the columbidae' with its portrait of the great man as a publicity-hungry plagiarist who got the science wrong. It certainly has done that.    In this week’s podcast I talk to Andrew Wilson about Darwin’s feet of clay — and the way in which, as Wilson sees it, the theory of evolution was used to license everything from the cruellest excesses of Victorian capitalism to the eugenics programmes of the mid-20th century.

This week, in the books podcast, I talk to Harriett Gilbert - who has a good claim to be the voice of books on radio. With the 15th anniversary of the BBC World Service's World Book Club (nine Nobel and 17 Booker winners have been guests to date), which she's presented from its first episode and in which world-class writers discuss their best known books. I ask her about her life and career, the changing literary landscape, and why she doesn't write novels herself any more. You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday. A special 15th Anniversary edition of World Book Club goes out on Sunday, featuring Sebastian Barry talking about The Secret Scripture.

We live in an age when sequels to, and re-imaginings of, the classics, seem to be a larger part of the literary landscape than ever before. We're seeing a steady stream of new Ian Fleming, new Agatha Christie, new Robert Ludlum, new Jane Austen, even new PG Wodehouse. What's the attraction of these books? And what does it feel like, as a writer, to step into the shoes of the greats? In this week's podcast I ask Bonnie MacBird, who's now on her second Sherlock Holmes novel, Unquiet Spirits, and Anthony O'Neill, who in Dr Jekyll and Mr Seek takes on the mantle of Stevenson, about the lure of the sequel.... You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes for a new podcast every Thursday.

This summer saw 20 years since the publication of the first Harry Potter novel. Love them or hate them, the adventures of JK Rowling's boy wizard are now a huge part of the literary landscape. In the wake of a Harry Potter conference organised by the Spectator's own Nick Hilton, I'm joined for this week's podcast by Nick and our children's book reviewer Melanie McDonagh to ask: how good were the books; what, in literary terms, defines their special sort of magic; and what has been their effect on children's writing in general? You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

This week, with the holidays approaching, I’m joined by the critic Alex Clark and Damian Barr — memoirist and host of the Savoy’s Literary Salon — to talk about summer reading. What do you take? What do you regret taking? Kindle, dead-tree or — 19th-century-style — cabin trunk full of books sent on ahead? Our discussion yielded a host of recommendations — from the brand new to the reliable old friends — that we hope will help you plan your own travelling library. For those who like the sound of some of these, we’ve picked them out and listed them below for your convenience….