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The Book Club — Arts
The Book Club

Literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented weekly by Sam Leith.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latest Episodes:

Allan Mallinson: The Shape of Battle Jul 21, 2022

Show notes

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the historian, novelist and former Army officer Allan Mallinson. He introduces his new book The Shape of Battle: Six Campaigns from Hastings to Helmand, andtells me why everyone should take an interest in warfare - as being the most complex of all human interactions; whether war is always 'hell' for everyone involved; and how while the technology may change, the essentials remain the same.

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Kavita Puri: Partition Voices Jul 13, 2022

Show notes

My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Kavita Puri, whose book Partition Voices excavatesthe often traumatic memories of the last generation to remember first-hand the mass migration and bloody violence of the partition of India. She tells me why the story has been so shrouded in silence – there isn’t a memorial to Partition, she says, anywhere on earth – and yet how it has shaped the UK’s population and politics ever since, and she says why she believes it’s vital that empire and the end of empire be taught in every British school.

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Linsday Fitzharris: The Facemaker Jul 06, 2022

Show notes

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Lindsey Fitzharris – whose new book is The Facemaker: One Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I. At its centre is the compelling figure of Harold Gillies – ace golfer, practical joker, and pioneer of the whole field of plastic surgery. Lindsey tells me about the extraordinary advances he made and the will and skill that drove them; and the poignant story of how victims of facial disfigurement were the invisible casualties of the conflict.

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Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon Jenkins: The Celts Jun 29, 2022

Show notes

My guest in this week’s book club podcast is Simon Jenkins. His new book The Celts: A Sceptical History tells the story of a race of people who, contrary to what many of us were taught in school, never existed at all. He tells me how and why “celts” were invented, what it has meant and continues to mean for the nations of the Union, and where he thinks we need to go next…

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philip Mansel: King of the World Jun 22, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the historian Philip Mansel. We talk about his new biography King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV. He tells me what really drove the great megalomaniac, whether he was a feminist avant la lettre, how his depredations in the Rhineland anticipated Putin’s in Ukraine – and why, if he hadn’t revoked the Edict of Nantes, the first man on the moon might have been speaking French.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrea Elliott: Invisible Child Jun 15, 2022

Show notes

In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by the New York Times's Andrea Elliott, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City. She tells me how she came to spend seven years reporting on a single, homeless family in Brooklyn, how she negotiated her duty to observe rather than participate – and what their telenovela-like experiences tell us about American history.

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China Miéville: A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto Jun 08, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s Book Club podcast, I’m joined by the writer China Miéville to talk about his new book A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto. China makes the case for why this 1848 document deserves our attention in the 21st century, why even its critics would benefit from reading it more closely and sympathetically, and why - in his view - the gamble of a revolutionary abolition of capitalism is not only possible, but well worth taking.

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Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony: Noise Jun 01, 2022

Show notes

My guests in this week's Book Club podcast are Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony, co-authors (with Cass R Sunstein) of Noise: A Flaw In Human Judgment. Augmenting the work on psychological bias that won Prof Kahneman a Nobel Prize, this investigation exposes a more invisible and often more impactful way in which human judgments go awry: the random-seeming variability which statisticians call noise. They tell me how it affects everything from business to academic life and the judicial system; and how we can detect it and minimise it. The answers to those questions, it turns out, are very hard for human beings (especially French ones) to accept...

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William Leith: Finding My Father May 25, 2022

Show notes

My guest in the Book Club podcast this week is my namesake (but no relation) William Leith – whose new book The Cut That Wouldn't Heal: Finding My Father describes the death of his father and the way it caused him to revisit and re-evaluate his childhood. We talk about the perils and possibilities of autobiography, the difficulty of looking death in the face, and an awkward moment with Karl Ove Knausgaard.

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Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk

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Wendy K. Pirsig: On Quality May 18, 2022

Show notes

In this week's Book Club podcast, I'm talking to Wendy K Pirsig – widow of Robert M Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the bestselling book of philosophy of all time. Wendy tells me about her late husband's big idea – the 'Metaphysics of Quality', as set out in a new collection of his writings, On Quality, which she has edited – how fame (and bereavement) changed him, and how he sought to undo years of dualism in the western philosophical tradition by recourse to eastern teachings and, of course, the odd monkey-wrench.

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For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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