Sam Leith

In this week’s Books Podcast, we’re turning our eye on an area of literary endeavour that is too often neglected: the first novel. Dozens are published every month; few are ever noticed. The late literary agent Desmond Elliott founded a prize to ensure that more of them were — and that the best would be publicly celebrated.

In this week’s Books Podcast, I’m joined by the novelist, broadcaster and serial user of arcane words Will Self. He has just published Phone, the third and final volume of the difficult but brilliant trilogy he began five years ago with the Man Booker shortlisted Umbrella. He talks to me about recurring characters, modernism, hating Tony Blair before it was fashionable, and how there’s more psychosis about than you think… You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, please do subscribe on iTunes for a new podcast every Thursday.

In this week's Books Podcast, we honour the five hundredth anniversary of the nailing of that business with the 95 Theses, the church door and the mad monk by discussing Martin Luther and his legacy. Was he a Protestant? Was he a monk? Was there even a church door? And what did the Reformation mean for Henry VIII and the generations of English monarchs to come? Is it, come to that, over? Answering all my dumb and ignorant questions on these subjects are two superbly intelligent and knowledgeable scholars of this vital period in European history.

Is Enlightenment rationalism overrated? Do we spend too much time thinking and not enough time letting our conscious thoughts scatter to the winds? My guest in this week's Books Podcast is the philosopher Jules Evans, who argues that we human beings have a deep need to get out of our heads. We talk about his new book The Art of Losing Control: A Philosopher's Search for Ecstatic Experience - in which he explores everything from extreme meditation to tantric swinging parties, from the sublime in Romantic art to the latest findings in psychedelic drug use. Learn what a near-death experience feels like (Jules has had one) - and wonder, with me, why so many people on DMT report visions of mechanical elves...

Following the publication of a new collection of the lost short stories of F Scott Fitzgerald (I’d Die For You and Other Lost Stories, Scribner UK, £16.99), I’m joined by two eminent Fitzgerald scholars to talk about the life, legacy and lasting greatness of the laureate of the Jazz Age.

This week's Books Podcast turns to perhaps the greatest work of the greatest writer in English history. Yup: it's Hamlet time. Specifically, I'm talking to the former artistic director of the Globe, Dominic Dromgoole, about his scheme to perform Hamlet in every country on the face of the earth - a two-year scheme whose rackety history and ultimate success he recounts in his fascinating new book Hamlet: Globe to Globe. A touring company taking Hamlet from Botswana to North Korea and all points in between? It sounds like the sort of thing you'd come up with after a few too many beers. Well, now that you mention it... You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, please subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

In this week’s Books Podcast, I meet the poet Murray Lachlan Young. In the 1990s, Murray became notorious: the first and only poet in history to get a million-pound contract with a record label. Naturally, those living in the standard-issue garrets developed some envy issues. As he promotes his collected work, How Freakin’ Zeitgeist Are You?, Murray talks in detail for the first time about the wild and eventually traumatising ride that took him from obscurity, via the main stage on Glastonbury, to obscurity again — before he picked up the pieces and returned to the stage. He also shares a somewhat disrespectful poem about a former editor of this magazine… You can listen to our conversation here: And do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

Back in October, I spoke to Hisham Matar — who has just won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography — about his book The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between. When Hisham was 19, his Libyan dissident father was abducted from exile by the Gadaffi regime and disappeared into Tripoli’s most notorious jail. The writer spent 20 years not knowing what had really happened. He talks here about his long struggle to find out, and his first trip back after the regime had fallen…. You can listen to our conversation here: And please subscribe on iTunes to get a new episode every Thursday.