The Book Club

• Nicola Barker: TonyInterruptor

  Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Nicola Barker, talking about her new book TonyInterruptor -- about how a man who interrupts a free jazz concert becomes a viral sensation on social media. Nicola tells Sam why some of her books are bouts of the flu and some are sneezes, how hard she works on her apparently spontaneous prose, why she remains devoted to reality television — and about the time she went to visit Martin Amis with a ghetto blaster. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected]

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• Gary Shteyngart: Vera, or Faith

  Sam Leith is joined for this week's Book Club podcast by Gary Shteyngart — whose new novel Vera, or Faith is set in a near-future America whose politics seems to be less science-fictional by the day. It tells the unexpectedly tender story of a bright but lonely ten-year-old girl contending with her parents' failing marriage and navigating the beginnings of a friendship. Gary tells Sam how parenthood changed him as a writer, how his feelings about his Russian heritage have shifted uncomfortably in light both of the Ukraine invasion and the US's fresh hostility to migrants, and why Writers' Tears is his students' drink of choice. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts and to contact us: [email protected] a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected]

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• Frances Wilson: Electric Spark – The Enigma of Muriel Spark

  My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the biographer Frances Wilson, whose new book Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark was recently lauded in these pages as "mesmerising" and "a revolutionary book". She tells me how she immersed herself in the spooky life and peerless art of the great novelist, and why a conventional biographical treatment would never have been adequate to a subject for whom fiction and reality twined in unexpected and disconcerting ways.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected] a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected]

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• Irvine Welsh: Men In Love – Trainspotting Sequel

  My guest this week is Irvine Welsh – who, three decades after his era-defining hit Trainspotting, returns with a direct sequel, Men In Love. Irvine tells me what Sick Boy, Renton, Spud and Begbie mean to him, why his new book hopes to encourage a new generation to discover Romantic verse and shagging, and why MDMA deserves more credit for the Good Friday Agreement than Tony Blair.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected]

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• M. John Harrison: The Course of the Heart

  My guest this week is the writer M. John Harrison, who joins me to talk about the rerelease of his 1992 novel The Course of the Heart – a deeply strange and riddling story of grief, friendship, memory and occult magic. We talk about why this book is so personal to him, what he learned from Charles Williams and Arthur Machen, turning his back on science fiction/fantasy and returning to it – as well as how probably the most acclaimed of all his novels, Light, came about after Iain Banks told him he wasn't having enough fun.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcastsContact us: [email protected]

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