Rachel and Simon speak with the literary agent Karolina Sutton . After a brief stint in advertising, she got a job as an agents' assistant and quickly started putting together her own list. She has worked with authors including Margaret Atwood, Ed Caesar , Anthony Doerr, Haruki Murakami, Tara Westover and Malala Yousafzai. In 2020 she won Agent of the Year at the British Book Awards. Earlier this year she moved from Curtis Brown to CAA . We spoke to Karolina about moving from advertising to agen...
Mar 07, 2023•55 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist Ian McEwan , the critically acclaimed author of 17 novels and two short-story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, "First Love, Last Rites", won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. Ian's novels include "The Child in Time", which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 1987; "The Cement Garden"; "Enduring Love"; " Amsterdam ", which won the Booker Prize in 1998; " Atonement "; "Saturday"; "On Chesil Beach"; "Solar"; "S...
Feb 21, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Tessa Hadley. She is the author of eight novels, including "Accidents in the Home" (2002), for which she was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and "The Past" (2015), which won a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize . Tessa regularly publishes stories in the New Yorker; a new collection of her short fiction, "After the Funeral" , will be released in July. We spoke to Tessa about being published for the first time in her 40s,...
Feb 07, 2023•58 min
Simon and Rachel speak to Orlando Figes , author of nine books on Russian and European history which have been translated into over 30 languages. Born in London, Figes studied history at Cambridge and, as a graduate student, completed archival research in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He rose to prominence in 1996 with his second book, " A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924 ", which the Times Literary Supplement later named as one its "100 most influential books since the war". ...
Jan 24, 2023•59 min
Rachel and Simon speak to Moya Lothian-McLean , contributing editor at Novara Media. She began writing articles about music for Vice in 2015 while studying at university; in 2016, after graduating, she joined Stylist as an editorial assistant and wrote features as well as articles for the website. In 2020 she joined gal-dem , an independent magazine, as politics editor. Now she is contributing editor at Novara Media and writes for the New York Times and the Guardian , among other publications . ...
Jan 10, 2023•57 min
Simon and Rachel speak to the novelist Mohsin Hamid . Born in Lahore, he grew up mostly in Pakistan but spent part of his childhood in California and returned to America to attend Princeton University. He worked in New York and London as a management consultant before returning to Lahore to pursue writing full-time. Mohsin's first novel, " Moth Smoke " (2000), was published in 14 languages and won a Betty Trask Award. His second novel, " The Reluctant Fundamentalist " (2007), recounted a Pakista...
Dec 27, 2022•55 min
Rachel and Simon speak to author, academic and literary critic Merve Emre . After a stint as a management consultant, she completed a PhD and taught English literature at McGill University in Canada, before taking up a role as an associate professor at Oxford. (This year she is a distinguished writer-in-residence at Wesleyan in the US.) Alongside her academic work, Merve has written books including " Paraliterary : The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America", " The Ferrante Letters " and " The...
Dec 13, 2022•59 min
Simon and Rachel speak to the journalist and author Oliver Bullough . After studying history at university Oliver moved to Russia, where he worked first for an English-language magazine in Saint Petersburg, then for The Times of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, and subsequently for Reuters, where he covered the war in Chechnya. Oliver's early books - " Let Our Fame Be Great " in 2010 and " The Last Man in Russia " in 2013 - examined respectively the Caucasus and a dissident Orthodox priest. His more ...
Nov 29, 2022•59 min
Rachel and Simon speak to the journalist, author and editor Tina Brown . She began working as a freelance journalist as a student and contributed to publications including the New Statesman , the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph ; in 1973 she won the Catherine Pakenham award for the most promising female journalist under the age of 25. In 1979 she was invited to edit Tatler , in 1984 she took over at Vanity Fair and in 1992 she became the first woman to become editor-in-chief of the New Yor...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the academic and author Robert Douglas-Fairhurst . After undergraduate studies and a PhD at Cambridge, Robert moved to Oxford in 2002, where he is a professor of English Literature and a fellow of Magdalen College. His previous books include " Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist ", which won the Duff Cooper Prize for biography in 2011; " The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland " in 2015, which was shortlisted for the Costa Priz...
Nov 01, 2022•56 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Kit de Waal . Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, she worked for several years in criminal and family law, sitting on adoption panels and writing manuals on foster care. Her experience in this field informed her debut novel, " My Name is Leon ", which was published in 2016 after a six-way auction and was adapted into a television film this year. Kit has also worked to increase diversity in publishing, using...
Oct 18, 2022•55 min
Simon and Rachel speak with novelist Marlon James . Born in Jamaica in 1970, his novel " A Brief History of Seven Killings " won the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States and a New York Times Notable Book . Marlon is now working on a trilogy of African fantasy novels, which began with " Black Leopard, Red Wolf ", a finalist for the US National Book Award for fiction in 2019, followed by " Moon Witch, Spider King " in 202...
Oct 04, 2022•58 min
Rachel and Simon speak with Perminder Mann, CEO of Bonnier Books UK . She was the first member of her family to go to university, where she studied drama; after declining an unpaid internship in the media, she turned to publishing, working in sales first at Macmillan, then Transworld and Bonnier. She left Bonnier for a stint in the toy industry, but returned to the company several years later. In 2015 and 2016 she was included on the Bookseller 's list of the most influential people in publishin...
Sep 20, 2022•57 min
Rachel and Simon speak with novelist and screenwriter Irvine Welsh . Born in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Welsh moved to London in 1978 where he immersed himself in the punk scene. He returned to Edinburgh in the late 1980s, studied for an MBA, spent 18 months addicted to heroin and worked in the council's housing department. His debut novel, " Trainspotting ", an account of heroin addicts written in a thick Leith dialect, was published in 1993. It became a cult success, helped by a film adaptat...
Sep 06, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Rachel and Simon speak with children's author and illustrator Lauren Child. She set up her own lampshade company and worked at a design agency before turning to books, publishing “I Want a Pet!” and “Clarice Bean, That's Me” in 1999. As well as the Clarice Bean series, Lauren is the author of the award-winning “Charlie and Lola” books (adapted into a television series which ran from 2005-08) and the Ruby Redford detective series. To date she has sold more than 6 million books in 19 languages wor...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and travel writer Colin Thubron. Colin worked in publishing in London and New York before writing his first travel book, " Mirror to Damascus ", in 1967 . Other early books continued to focus on the Middle East, but later he was drawn towards the Soviet Union and Communist China. In 1982 Colin travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey described in " Among the Russians ". His best-known travel books include "Behind the Wall" (winner of the Hawthorn...
Aug 09, 2022•57 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the historian and novelist Antonia Fraser. She began her career in the 1950s as an assistant to George Weidenfeld, the co-founder of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a British publishing house. Lady Antonia wrote her first book, "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", in her early twenties; her first major historical work, "Mary Queen of Scots" , was published in 1969. Since then she has written biographies of Oliver Cromwell , Charles II , the six wives of Henry ...
Jul 26, 2022•56 min
Simon and Rachel speak with journalist, author and film-maker Sebastian Junger . Attracted since childhood to “extreme situations and people at the edges of things,” Sebastian grew up in New England and worked as a high-climber for tree removal companies. After a chainsaw injury, he decided to focus on journalism, primarily writing about people with dangerous jobs. That led to his debut book in 1997, " The Perfect Storm ", an account of the loss of a fishing boat, which went on to sell over 3.5 ...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Monica Ali . Granta named her one of their brightest young British novelists in 2003 ahead of the publication of her first book, “ Brick Lane ”, which was then adapted into a film in 2007. She is also the author of “ Alentejo Blue ”, “ In the Kitchen ”, “ Untold Story ” and “ Love Marriage ” and has been nominated for awards including the Booker prize, the Orwell prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. We spoke to Monica about her smash-hit debu...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Simon and Rachel speak with novelist David Mitchell . Raised in Worcestershire in England, Mitchell later spent eight years living in Japan. The author of nine novels, including " Cloud Atlas ", "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" and most recently " Utopia Avenue ", David has been nominated for the Booker prize five times. His work has appeared in over 30 languages. David's novel "The Bone Clocks" (2014) won the World Fantasy Book Award and his screenwriting credits include " Matrix: Resurr...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Rachel and Simon speak with journalist and author Sian Meades-Williams . She has written for publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and the New York Times and is the creator of Freelance Writing Jobs , a media-industry newsletter. In 2021 she launched the Freelance Writing Awards and in March 2022 she published " The Pyjama Myth ", a guide to "the highs, lows and in-betweens of life in the competitive world of freelance writing". We spoke to Sian about getting into journ...
May 31, 2022•59 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the journalist and author Toby Harnden . A dual British and American citizen, Toby spent a decade as a Royal Navy officer before becoming a journalist. A former foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph who has reported from 33 countries, Toby was imprisoned in Zimbabwe, faced prosecution in Britain for protecting confidential sources, and was vindicated by a public inquiry in Ireland. He specialises in terrorism and war: his books include " B...
May 17, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Ruth Ozeki . In the 1980s Ruth worked in film, first as an art director and production designer for low-budget horror films, then as a writer, producer and director of independent films. "Halving the Bones" (1995), a documentary about her family history and the process of bringing her grandmother's remains from Japan, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Her first novel, "My Year of Meats" , was published in 1998 and "All ...
May 03, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 133
Simon and Rachel speak with journalist and author George Packer . A staff writer for the Atlantic and a former staff writer for the New Yorker , George is the author of " The Unwinding: Thirty Years of American Decline ", which was a New York Times bestseller and won a National Book Award. His other nonfiction books include " The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq ", "Blood of the Liberals", which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 2001, and " Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the Ame...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Rachel and Simon speak with journalist and author Christina Patterson. She began her career in publishing and worked as a literary programmer for the Southbank Centre; from 2000 to 2003 she was director of the Poetry Society. She joined the Independent and wrote columns and interview pieces as well as investigations into nursing, for which she was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2013 . Christina published her first memoir, "The Art of Not Falling Apart" in 2018, and "Outside, the Sky is Blue...
Apr 05, 2022•58 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls . In 2009 David's novel " One Day " was a global bestseller, published in 40 languages, and he is also the author of "Sweet Sorrow", "Us", "The Understudy" and "Starter for Ten". On screen, David has written adaptations of " Far From the Madding Crowd " and "When Did You Last See Your Father?", as well as turning his own novels, "Starter for Ten" and "One Day", into feature films. His adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s "Patri...
Mar 22, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the author and journalist Maggie Fergusson. After studying history at university, Maggie briefly worked in finance before joining Harper's & Queen magazine (now known as Harper's Bazaar. ) As a freelance writer, she was sent by the Times to interview the Scottish poet George Mackay Brown in 1992, and it proved the beginning of a friendship that would culminate with a prizewinning biography published in 2006. Maggie became Secretary of the Royal Society in Literatu...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Simon speaks with David Shelley , Group CEO of Hachette UK . After studying English at university, David entered the publishing industry in the 1990s as an editorial assistant at Allison & Busby . David rose through the ranks to become publishing director there at the age of just 23, and eventually turned the loss-making business into a profitable one, before joining Little, Brown as a crime editor in 2005. Six years later he became publisher at Little, Brown and he has held his current posi...
Feb 22, 2022•58 min
Rachel and Simon speak with Katie Kitamura. Born in California to Japanese parents, she wrote her first book, "Japanese for Travellers: A Journey Through Modern Japan" , in her early 20s. Her debut novel, "The Longshot", about a mixed martial arts fighter, was published in 2009; "Gone to the Forest", a tale of family drama in an unnamed colonial country, followed in 2012. "A Separation" , published in 2017, was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori literary prize. "Intimacies" , her latest novel...
Feb 08, 2022•59 min
Simon and Rachel speak with Alex Kay-Jelski , the editor-in-chief in the UK of sports website the Athletic . Alex, previously sports editor of the Times and the Daily Mail , set up British operations for the Athletic in 2019, hiring well-known names from other publications (and new young journalists) in a move that shook up the sportswriting scene. Originally established in 2016, the Athletic had 1.2 million subscribers as of December 2021, and this month was acquired by the New York Times for $...
Jan 25, 2022•55 min
