Rachel and Simon speak with the historian Bettany Hughes . A specialist in ancient and medieval history, Bettany is the author of five books: “Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore” , “The Hemlock Cup, Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life” , “Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities” , “Venus & Aphrodite” and “The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” . Alongside writing, Bettany is an experienced broadcaster, having written and hosted more than 50 TV and radio documentaries for the BBC...
Apr 30, 2024•57 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux . Born in Massachusetts, as a young man he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi and taught at universities in Uganda and Singapore. He published his first novel, "Waldo", in 1967, and since then has written numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, including " The Great Railway Bazaar" (1975), " The Mosquito Coast " (1981), "Riding the Iron Rooster" (1983), and "Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories " (2014). In 2015 Paul was aw...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the journalist and author Madhumita Murgia . She is currently the Financial Times ' first Artificial Intelligence Editor , where she covers developments in AI globally and broader issues including surveillance, data privacy and tech regulation. Before she joined the FT , she was head of technology at the Daily Telegraph , and associate editor at Wired magazine. Her first book, " Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI " was recently shortlisted for the inaugural Wo...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr
Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and biographer Nicholas Shakespeare. He began his career as a journalist, working for the Times and the Telegraph, before turning to book-writing in the 1980s. His debut novel, "The Vision of Elena Silves" (1989), won the Somerset Maugham Award; "The Dancer Upstairs" was named the best novel of 1995 by the American Libraries Association and a film adaptation was directed by John Malkovich. "The High Flyer" (1993) and "Snowleg" (2004) were both longlisted ...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Rachel and Simon speak to Juliet Mabey, co-founder and publisher of Oneworld Publications . She established the company in 1986 with her husband, Novin Doostdar, as an independent publishing house focusing on non-fiction. Its books have covered a broad range of subjects, including biography, history, politics and science, and have won prizes including the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. In 2009 Juliet set up a fiction list; its authors won the Booker prize in 2015 ( Marlon James for "...
Mar 05, 2024•58 min
Simon and Rachel speak with Jo Nesbø , one of the world's bestselling crime writers. Jo's writing career began when he was commissioned to produce a memoir about life on the road with his band, Di Derre , and he instead came up with the plot for his first Harry Hole crime novel, " The Bat ". His books - including "The Leopard", " Phantom ", "Police", "The Son", "The Thirst", " Macbeth " and "Knife" - are now published in 50 languages, and have sold over 55 million copies around the world. Alongs...
Feb 20, 2024•54 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri. Her bestselling debut story collection, “ Interpreter of Maladies ”, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 2000 and was translated into more than 30 languages. Her debut novel, “ The Namesake ”, was published to acclaim in 2003 and adapted into a film in 2006; “The Lowland” (2013) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Since 2015 Jhumpa has written in Italian, with volumes ...
Feb 06, 2024•57 min
Simon and Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Adam Thirlwell . The author of four novels - the first of which, " Politics ", was published in 2003 when he was 24, and the latest of which is " The Future Future " - Adam's work has been translated into 30 languages. His essays appear in the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books , and he is an advisory editor of the Paris Review . His awards include a Somerset Maugham Award and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy...
Jan 23, 2024•54 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and historian Philippa Gregory. She began her career in journalism and worked at BBC Radio before publishing her first historical novel, "Wideacre" , in 1987 while she was completing a PhD in 18th-century literature. Other bestselling novels followed, including "The Other Boleyn Girl" - which was adapted into a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in 2008 - and "The White Queen". To date, Philippa's books have sold more than 10m copies wor...
Jan 09, 2024•58 min
Simon and Rachel speak to the drinks writer Henry Jeffreys , who won Fortnum & Mason Drink Writer of the Year for 2022/23. Henry is the author of four books on alcohol: " Empire of Booze ", a history of Britain and its empire told through the origin stories of various drinks; "The Home Bar"; "The Cocktail Dictionary"; and, most recently, " Vines in a Cold Climate ", about the nascent English wine industry. Henry worked in the wine trade and publishing before becoming a writer. He has appeare...
Dec 26, 2023•55 min
Rachel and Simon speak to the journalist, author and former co-host of Always Take Notes, Kassia St. Clair. She has written for Architectural Digest, The Economist, the Times Literary Supplement and Wired, and had a column in Elle Decoration for many years. Her first book, “ The Secret Lives of Colour ”, recounted the “unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues”; the book was a top-ten bestseller, a Radio 4 Book of the Week and has been translated into more than 20 language...
Dec 12, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the biographer Adam Sisman . After an initial career in publishing, Adam's first book, a biography of historian A.J.P. Taylor, appeared in 1994. His second, " Boswell's Presumptuous Task " (2000), won the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and he has subsequently written biographies of another historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper , and the espionage novelist John le Carré. A coda to his original biography of Le Carré, published in 2015, came out this year; i...
Nov 28, 2023•51 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Victoria Hislop. After studying English at university, Victoria worked in book publishing, PR and journalism. She turned to fiction in 2005 with “The Island” , a love story set on Spinalonga, Greece’s former leprosy colony. The novel was translated into 40 languages and sold more than six million copies worldwide; it was adapted into a 26-part Greek television series, which achieved record ratings in the country. Subsequent books, including “The Return” a...
Nov 14, 2023•59 min
Simon and Rachel speak with Anjan Sundaram , an award-winning author, journalist and television presenter, whose war correspondence has won a Frontline Club Award and a Reuters prize. Anjan's previous books are "Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship" (an Amazon Book of the Year) and " Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo " (a Royal African Society Book of the Year). He has reported from Central Africa for the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Guardian , the Observer , Gran...
Oct 31, 2023•56 min
Rachel and Simon speak with Sarah Braybrooke, publishing director at Ithaka Press , an imprint of Bonnier Books UK. Sarah started her career in publicity, first at Profile, then at Scribe, an independent publishing house based in Australia. She stayed with Scribe for 12 years, becoming managing director of Scribe UK in 2017, and publisher in 2020. During her time there, Sarah worked on titles including "Gut" , a bestselling science book about the digestive system, and "Billion Dollar Whale" , an...
Oct 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce . " Millions ", his debut children's novel, published in 2004, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal. He is also the author of "Noah's Gold", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again", "Cosmic", "Framed", "The Astounding Broccoli Boy" and "Runaway Robot". His books have been shortlisted for numerous other prizes, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Whitbread Children's Fiction Award (now the Costa Book Award) and th...
Oct 03, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the nature writer and novelist Helen Macdonald. "H is for Hawk" , a memoir of grief and falconry published in 2014, won several prizes including the Costa Book of the Year and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. "Vesper Flights" , a collection of essays, was a Sunday Times bestseller in 2020. "Prophet", her latest book , is a sci-fi novel co-written with Sin Blaché. Helen is currently working on a project about Midway Atoll, an island in the North Pacific Ocean....
Sep 19, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist Lee Child , one of the world’s leading thriller writers. Lee - real name James Grant - was born in Coventry in 1954, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in the United States. He began his writing career after he was made redundant from Granada Television in the 1990s. Today the novels featuring his hero, former military policeman Jack Reacher , consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over 100m copies. Le...
Sep 05, 2023•1 hr 16 min
In this episode Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and journalist Megan Nolan . Her essays and reviews have been published by the Guardian and the New York Times , among other publications. Her debut novel, "Acts of Desperation" , was published in 2021 and received a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel, "Ordinary Human Failings" , was published in July. We spoke to Megan about get...
Aug 22, 2023•51 min
Simon and Rachel speak to James Daunt, who runs both Barnes & Noble , the world’s largest retail bookseller, and Waterstones , the largest retail bookseller in the United Kingdom. James currently oversees approximately 600 Barnes & Noble shops in the United States and 293 Waterstones locations across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium. After an early career as an investment banker, James opened his own bookstore, Daunt Books , in London in 1990. In 2011 James was appointed mana...
Aug 08, 2023•57 min
Rachel and Simon speak to Francesca Main , publisher of Phoenix Books , an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group which in turn is part of Hachette. She started her career at Penguin, first in the rights department and then as an editorial assistant at Hamish Hamilton; she then spent four years as a commissioning editor at Simon & Schuster. She joined Picador as editorial director in 2011 and launched the careers of writers including Adam Kay , Cathy Rentzenbrink and Jessie Burton . In 2015 F...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Simon and Rachel speak with Albert Read , who runs magazine publisher Condé Nast in the UK and recently published a book called " The Imagination Muscle ", about the genesis of ideas. Albert has launched and led businesses for Condé Nast in the UK, and across Europe and Asia, overseeing titles such as Vogue , GQ , Wired , Condé Nast Traveller and Vanity Fair . A former journalist, he has written for the Spectator, the TLS , the Times and the Telegraph . He initially studied classics at universit...
Jul 11, 2023•56 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the literary agent and novelist Abigail Bergstrom . She started her career at the publisher Simon & Schuster in 2011; by 2014 she had been promoted to commissioning editor. She was then headhunted to set up and launch the literary arm of Gleam Futures , a talent-management agency, and oversaw the publication of several bestselling books. In 2020 Abigail was nominated for Literary Agent of the Year 2020 at the British Book Awards and in 2021 she launched her own co...
Jun 27, 2023•58 min•Ep. 163
Simon and Rachel speak with Nels Abbey , a British-Nigerian writer, media executive and satirist who co-founded the Black Writers Guild in 2020 in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. A former banker, Nels's first book, "Think Like a White Man" , was published in 2019. Penned under the alter-ego ‘Professor Boulé Whytelaw III’, the book is a satire of modern racial discourse and politics in the corporate world. Nels is now working on "Hip Hop MBA - What the Empires, Moguls, and Business ...
Jun 13, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the literary agent Sophie Lambert . After working as a bookseller and a book buyer in London for several years, Sophie moved to New York and spent three years there as an assistant at Janklow & Nesbit. She moved back to London and started her own list at Tibor Jones and Associates before joining C&W in 2013. She became a director and later managing director; in 2019 Sophie was shortlisted for Agent of the Year. She represents authors who have been nominated fo...
May 30, 2023•58 min
Simon and Rachel speak with the screenwriter and novelist Jed Mercurio . A former hospital doctor and Royal Air Force officer, Jed made his entry into television after he answered an advert in the British Medical Journal seeking advisors for a hospital drama. Although he had limited experience, he was soon scripting the BBC series " Cardiac Arrest ". Jed's subsequent television credits include "Bodies", "Lady Chatterley’s Lover", "Critical", "Strike Back", and "The Grimleys", and his most recent...
May 16, 2023•53 min
Rachel and Simon speak with the literary agent Carrie Plitt. She began her career in publishing in the rights department at Penguin, before moving to the literary agency Conville and Walsh in 2011. In 2016 she joined Felicity Bryan Associates and the authors she now represents include Reni Eddo-Lodge , Catherine Belton and Natasha Lunn . In 2018 Carrie was included on the Bookseller's list of rising stars of the book trade and in 2020 she was shortlisted for Agent of the Year at the British Book...
May 02, 2023•59 min
Simon and Rachel speak to David Wolf , who runs the Long Read section of the Guardian newspaper , publishing in-depth reporting, profiles and essays. David has worked at the Long Read since the section was founded in 2014 – first as commissioning editor, then overall editor. During that time, the Long Read has published over 1,000 pieces and David has personally edited articles on a wide variety of subjects, from profiles of the French President and Britain's most successful estate agent , to st...
Apr 18, 2023•1 hr
Rachel and Simon speak to the journalist and author Sally Hayden, who won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2022 for her book "My Fourth Time, We Drowned" . Currently the Africa correspondent for the Irish Times , she has also worked with the BBC, the Financial Times , Foreign Policy , the Guardian , the New York Times and the Washington Post . In 2019 she was included on Forbes 's "30 Under 30" list of young media stars in Europe. Sally's reporting focuses on migration and human rights;...
Apr 04, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Simon and Rachel speak with Fraser Nelson , who has edited the Spectator magazine since 2009. Previously a financial journalist with the Times and political editor of the Scotsman, during his tenure at the Spectator Fraser has overseen a near doubling of the magazine’s sales. He is also a columnist with the Daily Telegraph , sits on the board of the Centre for Social Justice , a centre-right think tank, and has presented two Channel Four documentaries on the subject of inequality . We spoke to F...
Mar 21, 2023•1 hr 4 min
