The Book Club

In this week’s Book Club podcast, Sam Leith is joined by philosopher John Sellars to discuss his new book, Stoicism Is Not What You Think.
Sellars explores the ancient philosophy of Stoicism and challenges some of its most common misconceptions – from the idea that Stoics repress their emotions to the belief that they are cold, indifferent and detached from the world.
From its origins in ancient Athens to its modern revival online, Sellars explains what the Stoics actually believed and counter Stoicism’s reputation beyond its ‘stiff upper lip’ image.
Sam and John also discuss Marcus Aurelius, the role of women in the history of Stoicism, and the growing body of psychological research asking whether putting Stoic ideas into practice can actually improve our lives.

Produced by Abigail Brierley.
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In this week's Book Club podcast, Sam Leith is joined by The New Yorker writer Anand Gopal, whose new book, long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize, is Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Revolution.

What does freedom mean once the dictator has gone? Anand explains why he spent eight years reporting on Manbij, a city of 150,000 that pushed out the Assad regime and set about building a democracy from scratch – and how the argument over what came next split the revolution in two. They discuss the bubblegum seller who became a protest leader, the police chief who quietly stopped shooting at the crowds, how six outsiders talked their way into control of the city, and why the manuscript was handed in three days before Assad fell.

Produced by Henry Lloyd
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In this week’s Book Club podcast, Sam Leith is joined by bestselling novelist Hannah Richell to discuss her new memoir, An Ocean and a Day.

When Hannah’s husband died in a surfing accident, her life in Australia was shattered. Suddenly, she was a single mother to two young children, navigating a grief she could never have imagined. Her memoir traces that journey from the moment of the accident, but, more uniquely, looks beyond those first years of loss – to what grief looks like with the benefit of time, distance and reflection.

Sam and Hannah discuss the shame and embarrassment that can accompany grief, the physical effects of loss, how her experience has shaped her fiction, and what makes memoirs so powerful - to both writer and reader.
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In this week’s Book Club podcast, Sam Leith is joined by The Times columnist James Marriott, whose new book is The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-literate Society.
Are we witnessing the end of the reading age? James explains why literacy has shaped not just our culture but the way we think – and why its decline could have profound consequences for politics, democracy and public life. They discuss how television, TikTok and short-form video have transformed our attention spans, whether AI will further erode the status of writing, and why the readers of the future may become a new cognitive elite.
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My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of a number of fantastic books, including The Cauldron, which released this week. Simon and I talk about the making of the modern middle east, and how we forget some of the most fundamental groups who shaped this part of the world into the region that we know of today.
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