The Book Club Review

New year, new intentions – but if you're in the northern hemisphere, January can feel less like renewal and more like the darkest, coldest stretch of endless winter. Maybe what you need isn't another resolution. Maybe you just need the right book.
Ella Berthoud is an writer and an artist, but most importantly from our point of view a bibliotherapist. She has been prescribing fiction for life's ailments for over a decade. She co-wrote The Novel Cure, a brilliant guide that matches books to every psychological state and is packed with sound recommendations.
Who better then to give me some great suggestions for avoiding the January blues. Join Kate and Ella as they talk about the questions that vex every reader: how do we find more time for reading? How do we escape reading slumps? And how can we read more deeply without it feeling like homework?
Plus of course we're swapping lots of great book recommendations for January and the year ahead. Listen in for a shot of literary inspiration that might be just what you need.
Booklist
The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud
 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter (Jane Degras)
Dálvi by Laura Galloway
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Robin Buss)

Find out more about Ella at ellaberthoud.com

Find all the books mentioned in this episode in the Book Club Review Bookshop, on Bookshop UK, the online retailer that supports independent bookshops.

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We're celebrating the end of the year with a look back over our favourite reads of 2025, from new releases to backlist gems, best book club books, best non-fiction, best comfort reads and more. Between us we read over 350 books in 2025. Listen in to hear the ones we loved best. We've also got a radical new idea for a book club involving cold-water swimming and the works of Robert B. Parker, and how to embrace DNFing without guilt. Join us for recommendations to see you through the festive season and set your new reading year off in style.
With Phil Chaffee and Sarah Oliver
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You can also buy someone gift membership at https://www.patreon.com/thebookclubreview/gift
Booklist
Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
Crudo by Olivia Laing
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngoze Adiche
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Lake Shore by Gary Shteyngart
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm
The First Man by Albert Camus
Robert B. Parker novels
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Muybridge by Guy Delisle
The Sense & Sensibility Diaries by Emma Thompson
The Lockwood & Co novels by Jonathan Stroud
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower
Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple
Maurice and Marilyn, or A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhurst
Agent Zo by Clare Mulley
The Devil Two Step by Jamie Quattro
Train Dreams by Denis Johnston
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnston
The Director by Daniel Kelman
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
How to End a Story by Helen Garner (3 volume diaries collection)
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
This House of Grief by Helen Garner
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
Pet Sematary 1983 cover

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'I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train' wrote Oscar Wilde, in the Importance of Being Ernest. In this episode Kate is joined by critic, editor and podcaster Lucy Scholes and regular pod guest Phil Chaffee to explore the intimate world of diaries. Can immersing ourselves in the details of other people's lives offer us valuable insight into how to fully appreciate the passing moments of our own? From gossipy self-mythologising Samuel Pepys right up to the present with the experimentation of Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries, and the beauty and hard-won insight of Helen Garner's Baillie Gifford prize-winning diaries. Also not to be missed, living it up Vanity Fair style through the glitz and glamour of 80s New York, with Tina Brown.
And if you enjoy this conversation don't miss Part II, over on the Patreon, where we swap notes on our favourite fictional diaries, consider the diaries we'd love to read if they had only been published and share some thoughts on our own diary keeping. You'll find that episode plus lots of benefits including ad-free listening, extra episodes, our community of readers and the pod book club over at patreon.com/thebookclubreview.
And to take advantage of that Serious Readers offer of £150 off any HD light head to serious readers.com/bcr and use the code BCR at checkout.
Book list
The Private Life of the Diary by Sally Bayley
The Paris Review
They by Kay Dick
Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Dinah Brooke
Part of the Story by Margaret Busby
Woman Alive by Susan Ertz
Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista
Look Closer by Robert Douglas Fairhurst
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Robert Latham (ed)
The Diaries of Virginia Woolf
How To End a Story by Helen Garner
Henry Chips Channon: The Diaries
The James Lees Milne diaries
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
There and Back: 1999–2009 by Michael Palin
The Vanity Fair Diaries 1983–1992 by Tina Brown
End of a Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer
War in Val D'Orcia by Iris Origo
Russian Journal by Andrea Lee
Beloved Son Felix: Coming of Age in the Renaissance by Felix Platter
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati
Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
Pharmacopeia by Derek Jarman
Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti
A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter
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Explore this year's Booker Prize shortlist on the latest episode of the Book Club Review! Hosts Kate and Laura and contributors Phil Chaffee and Martin Vovk discuss and debate the six shortlisted novels.
Listen in to hear our predictions, and then find out our reaction to the winner as we listen in to the live Booker Prize ceremony. We won't spoil the plots for you, just whet your appetite to read some or all of the books, all of which make for brilliant discussion.
Booklist
Paddy Clark, Ha, H, Ha by Roddy Doyle
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Flesh by David Szalay
All That Man Is by David Szalay
Starling House by Alex E. Harrow
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markowits
Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles
You Don't Have To Live Like This by Ben Markowits
Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
All Fours by Miranda July
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Audition by Katie Kitamura
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

Booker Longlist episode
Episode 181 of The Book Club Review
Links
A Good Read: Colm Toibin and Zadie Smith discuss Flesh
Martin's Eyes On the Prize blog
Browse Martin's archive and discover his extensive reviews (including The Women's Prize) here.
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In which Kate is joined by pod regular, journalist Phil Chaffee and Professor Elizabeth Eva Leach. Both read over 200 books a year, and their reading stacks this year have included the Booker longlist.
And so who better to consider the books that didn't make the final cut – but which are, notwithstanding, the 'best' books selected from over 150 submitted titles.
As we know, really great books can get overlooked for the shortlist. Consider Trust by Hernan Diaz, longlisted but not shortlisted, or, going further back Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and before that Penelope Fitzgerald's miraculous novel The Blue Flower. The fallibility of the judging process thus proven let's leave no stone unturned in considering this year's selection. Did the judges overlook a new favourite read?
The Booker Prize is announced on 10th November and we'll be recording an episode on the shortlist on the night. Coming soon!
Booklist
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

Endling by Maria Reva

One Boat by Jonathan Buckley

The Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk

The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

Universality by Natasha Brown

The South by Tash Aw

Love Forms by Claire Adam

Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

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