Simon Mayo's Books Of The Year
238 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★★ - 57 ratingsSimon Mayo and Matt Williams invite the world's finest authors in for a chat.
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Episodes
Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell
December 12, 2019 09:14 - 16 minutesMalcolm Gladwell is a journalist, author and podcast maker. His first five books were on The New York Times Best Seller list. Here her chats to Simon and Matt about his favourite authors and books - which include John Le Carre, Henry Treece and Clifford Irving Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Malcolm Gladwell (Talking To Strangers)
December 05, 2019 07:00 - 40 minutesMalcolm Gladwell is a journalist, author and podcast maker. His first five books were on The New York Times Best Seller list. His sixth book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, was released in September 2019. The book examines interactions with strangers, and covers examples that include the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath and the death of Sandra Bland. It challenges the assumptions we are programmed to ...
A Q&A with Lee Child
November 27, 2019 07:26 - 12 minutes - 14.1 MBMulti million selling author Lee Child gives a rather candid glimpse in to his reading and writing habits For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Q&A with Lee Child
November 27, 2019 07:26 - 13 minutesMulti million selling author Lee Child gives a rather candid glimpse in to his reading and writing habits Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lee Child - Jack Reacher: Blue Moon
November 21, 2019 19:37 - 47 minutesLee Child is a publishing phenomenon. His Jack Reacher novels have sold over 100 million copies. In his latest, Blue Moon, Reacher steps out of a bus to help a potential victim and then finds himself in the thick of a turf war between two rival gangs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our book Q&A with Adele Parks
November 20, 2019 07:00 - 14 minutes - 16.8 MBBestselling author Adele Parks talks about her favourite books and writers. Including Enid Blyton, Vera Brittain, Clare Mackintosh and Muriel Spark. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Q&A with Adele Parks
November 20, 2019 07:00 - 16 minutesBestselling author Adele Parks talks about her favourite books and writers. Including Enid Blyton, Vera Brittain, Clare Mackintosh and Muriel Spark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Adele Parks (Lies, Lies, Lies)
November 13, 2019 19:00 - 46 minutesAdele Park's latest novel Lies Lies Lies is a Sunday Times bestseller. She has written 19 novels, selling over 3.5million copies in the UK alone. In our latest pod, Adele talks us through her writing process, the planning, the research and the champagne. In Lies Lies Lies Adele explores the darkest corners of a relationship in freefall in a mesmerising tale of marriage and secrets. After years together, the arrival of longed-for daughter Millie sealed everything in place for Simon and Matt, I...
Q&A with George Alagiah
October 28, 2019 07:29 - 17 minutesBroadcaster, journalist and author George Alagiah talks us through his favourite books and authors... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
George Alagiah
October 21, 2019 19:05 - 45 minutes - 52.6 MBSince 2007, George has been the presenter of the BBC News at Six and has also been the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News since its launch in 2010. A specialist on Africa and the developing world, Alagiah has interviewed, among others, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. George's debut novel is set in the post-apartheid South African land grabs. It’s a sharp and nuanced thriller wit...
George Alagiah (The Burning Land)
October 21, 2019 19:05 - 49 minutesSince 2007, George has been the presenter of the BBC News at Six and has also been the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News since its launch in 2010. A specialist on Africa and the developing world, Alagiah has interviewed, among others, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. George's debut novel is set in the post-apartheid South African land grabs. It’s a sharp and nuanced thriller with a...
Q&A with Wild Swans author Jung Chang
October 08, 2019 06:00 - 18 minutesThe best selling author talks about her favourite books and writers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jung Chang
October 01, 2019 19:49 - 41 minutesJung Chang is best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans. Published in 1991, it has sold over 15 million copies, has been translated in to 40 languages - and is one of Oprah's "Books That Defined A Generation". It is banned in China - where Jung grew up. Her new book is Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismi...
A Q&A with Dr Chris Naunton (Searching For The Lost Tombs of Egypt)
August 20, 2019 07:00 - 14 minutesEgyptologist Chris Naunton talks us through his favourite writers, explorers and books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr Chris Naunton (Searching For The Lost Tombs of Egypt)
August 04, 2019 11:33 - 29 minutesWhere are the tombs of Alexander the Great or Cleopatra? Both rulers were buried in Egypt, but their tombs have never been found despite years of intensive research and excavation. Yet we have tantalizing clues. Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt describes the quest for these and other great missing tombs those we know existed, but which have not yet been identified. Dr Chris Naunton is an Egyptologist and the Director of the Egypt Exploration Society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...
A Q&A with Matt Haig
August 04, 2019 11:31 - 18 minutesFind out about Matt Haig's favourite books and writers. Matt is one of Britain's best loved and most prolific writers. Reasons To Stay Alive and Notes From A Nervous Planet were both Sunday Times bestsellers. His children’s novels have won the Smarties Gold Medal, the Blue Peter Book of the Year, been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal three times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choi...
Matt Haig
July 28, 2019 17:51 - 35 minutesMatt Haig pops in to chat about his new books: Evie and the Animals and The Truth Pixie. His children’s book A Boy Called Christmas was a runaway hit and is translated in over 25 languages. It is being made into a film by Studio Canal and The Guardian called it an ‘instant classic’. His children’s novels have won the Smarties Gold Medal, the Blue Peter Book of the Year, been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal three times. His memoir Reas...
A Q&A with Emma John (Wayfaring Stranger)
July 22, 2019 15:49 - 21 minutesJournalist and author Emma John talks us through her favourite books and writers - which include Stephen Fry, Amy Poehler and Mark Twain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Emma John (Wayfaring Stranger)
July 15, 2019 15:48 - 33 minutesCan you feel nostalgic for a life you've never known? Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world. Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it fe...
Q&A with Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit/Frankissstein)
July 10, 2019 13:59 - 12 minutesJeanette Winterson is one of the UK's most loved and respected authors. In our Q&A she discusses her favourite writers and books - and her reading and writing habits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jeanette Winterson (Frankissstein)
July 03, 2019 21:34 - 39 minutesWhat will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realise. Frankissstein may well terrify you. But will make you laugh. Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester and read English at Oxford, during which time she wrote her first novel, the Whitbread award winning Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. She has won a BAFTA Award for Best Drama, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award...
Q&A with Sue Nelson (Wally Funk's Race For Space)
June 26, 2019 12:29 - 13 minutesSue Nelson is an award-winning science journalist, producer and broadcaster. A former BBC TV science correspondent and Radio 4 presenter, Sue makes short films on space missions for the European Space Agency and co-presents the Space Boffins podcast, whose guests have included astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Eileen Collins, Tim Peake and Helen Sharman. Sue's extensive broadcasting career has taken her from rocket launches in South America to driving a lunar buggy in London alongside Gene Cernan, the ...
Wally Funk's Race For Space
June 20, 2019 08:07 - 41 minutesWally Funk was among the Mercury 13, the first group of American pilots to pass the Woman in Space programme. Wally sailed through a series of rigorous physical and mental tests, with one of her scores beating all the male Mercury 7 astronauts', including John Glenn's, the first American in orbit. But just one week before the final phase of training, the programme was abruptly cancelled. A combination of politics and prejudice meant that none of the women ever flew into space. Undeterred, Wal...
Q&A with Chloe Hooper (The Arsonist)
May 22, 2019 13:09 - 13 minutesChloe's book The Arsonist is Simon and Matt's favourite of the year so far. Here she talks us through her favourite authors and books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chloe Hooper - The Arsonist
May 15, 2019 15:17 - 39 minutesThe Arsonist tells the real-life story behind one of Australia’s darkest days and the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australia’s history, Black Saturday. On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. However the detectives soon found...
Q&A Michelle Paver & John Boyne
April 25, 2019 07:00 - 21 minutesTwo hugely successful authors have a crack at our book Q&A Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Michelle Paver & John Boyne
April 18, 2019 17:06 - 35 minutesMichelle Paver is an international bestselling author with over 3 million copies of her books sold in 37 countries across the globe. She writes for both adults and children and her work includes two of the most critically and commercially acclaimed ghost stories of modern times, Dark Matter and Thin Air and the prize-winning, million copy selling, children’s series, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. Her new book Wakenhyrst, set in Edwardian Suffolk, was inspired by a series of real events and f...
Q&A with Prof Lewis Dartnell
April 11, 2019 06:00 - 19 minutesScience writer Prof Lewis Dartnell tells Simon and Matt about his favourite books and writers. And how long you could survive in a supermarket after The Apocalypse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Prof Lewis Dartnell - Origins
April 06, 2019 12:53 - 34 minutesThe best selling author of Origins: How The Earth Made Us - the story of the human species as shaped by the environment. Prof Lewis Dartnell is a research scientist, presenter and author based in London. He has published four books including The Knowledge - which was a Sunday Times Book of the Year and international bestseller. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our Q&A with Anita Anand
March 20, 2019 14:47 - 17 minutesBroadcaster and journalist Anita Anand picks her favourite books and authors - including Roald Dahl, Gitta Sereny, Emily Eden and Fern Riddell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Anita Anand - The Patient Assassin
March 14, 2019 20:31 - 33 minutesAnita Anand tells the remarkable story of one Indian's twenty-year quest for revenge, taking him around the world in search of those he held responsible for the Amritsar massacre of 1919, which cost the lives of hundreds. The Patient Assassin shines a devastating light on one of the Raj's most horrific events, but reads like a taut thriller, and reveals some astonishing new insights into what really happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about y...
Q&A with Jonathan Freedland/Sam Bourne
March 07, 2019 07:54 - 19 minutesFind out the reading habits of thriller writer (and Guardian journalist) Jonathan Freedland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sam Bourne aka Jonathan Freedland
February 28, 2019 20:40 - 34 minutesJonathan Freedland is a Guardian journalist who has written 7 thrillers under the name Sam Bourne. To Kill the Truth springs from one question. What if, in this era of post-truth, someone tried to destroy all evidence of the past – starting with the records and documents by which we know what is true and what is false? Thanks to galloping technology – which now makes fake ‘archive footage’ possible, along with bogus sound recordings of historical figures saying things they never said – and go...
Q&A with Charlie Connelly
February 21, 2019 00:01 - 15 minutesThe author of "Last Train To Hilversum - A Journey In Search Of The Magic of Radio" talks us through his favourite books and authors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Charlie Connelly - Last Train To Hilversum
February 14, 2019 00:01 - 33 minutesCharlie Connelly is a bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster. His many books include Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast, In Search of Elvis: A Journey To Find The Man Beneath The Jumpsuit and Our Man In Hibernia: Ireland, The Irish And Me. Three of his books have featured as Radio 4′s Book of the Week. His book Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace was shortlisted for the 2016 MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. The book he wrote with his friend Bernard Su...
Alex Michaelides - The Silent Patient
February 07, 2019 00:01 - 35 minutesThe author of one of the most anticipated thrillers of 2019 - The Silent Patient Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Q&A with Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient)
February 02, 2019 14:50 - 15 minutesListen to author Alex Michaelides talk about his favourite books and authors. His debut novel THE SILENT PATIENT has been sold to over 30 countries and the film rights have been optioned by the makers of 12 Years A Slave Alex studied English literature at Cambridge University and got his MA in screenwriting at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He wrote the film The Devil You Know (2013) starring Rosamund Pike and co-wrote The Con is On (2018), starring Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Parker ...
Q&A with Helen Russell
January 24, 2019 00:01 - 12 minutesThe Atlas of Happiness author tells Simon about her favourite authors, which include Kate Atkinson, Jill Murphy, David Niven, Naomi Alderman, Siri Hustvedt and Bill Bryson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Helen Russell - Atlas of Happiness
January 17, 2019 14:55 - 40 minutesThe Atlas of Happiness is a round-the-world trip through 33 international happiness concepts, from the bestselling author of The Year of Living Danishly, Helen Russell. Feeling terrified of that upcoming job interview? Take inspiration from the Icelanders and get some fietta reddast, the unwavering belief that everything will work out in the end. Lost your way in life? Make like the Chinese and find your xingfu, or the thing that gives you real purpose. Too much on your plate? The Italians can...
John Simpson's Q&A
December 21, 2018 00:01 - 17 minutesLegendary journalist John Simpson tells us about his favourite books and authors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Parky's Q&A
December 20, 2018 01:00 - 20 minutesSir Michael Parkinson talks us through his favourite books Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Robin Ince Q&A
December 19, 2018 00:01 - 10 minutesComedian Robin Ince tackles our book Q&A. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Robin Ince
December 16, 2018 17:00 - 48 minutesA very thoughtful chat with Robin about his latest book - I'm A Joke And So Are You - A Comedian's Take On What Makes Us Human. Covering brains, death and the voices inside your head. Yes, your head. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Roger Daltrey
December 13, 2018 18:08 - 57 minutesAn undiagnosed broken back, turning up to Woodstock in a VW Beetle, and 6 of the best on his bare arse. The legendary frontman of The Who tells all about his autobiography Thanks A Lot Mr Kibblewhite Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Roger Daltrey on the life of Keith Moon
December 12, 2018 11:14 - 11 minutesA taster from our next pod...about life on tour with The Who - and news of the new Keith Moon film Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sir Michael Parkinson
December 10, 2018 18:01 - 40 minutesSir Parky pops in to chat about his friend, the flawed footballing genius George Best- the focus of his new memoir. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
John Simpson
December 05, 2018 13:28 - 41 minutesJohn Simpson has been the BBC's World Affairs Editor for more than half his fifty-two year career. The legendary journalist tells us about his new novel Moscow, Midnight. MP Patrick Macready has been found dead in his flat. The coroner rules it an accident, a sex game gone wrong. Jon Swift is from the old stock of journos - cynical, cantankerous and overweight - and something about his friend's death doesn't seem right. Then days after Macready's flat is apparently burgled, Swift discovers th...
Q&A with Cressida Cowell and Edward Brooke Hitching
December 02, 2018 05:00 - 29 minutesFind out the writing and reading habits of this week's authors. Cressida is the multi million selling creator of How To Train Your Dragon. And Edward has compiled a book of maps which chart the rise of exploration. They talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cressida Cowell & Edward Brooke Hitching
November 28, 2018 12:11 - 37 minutesCressida Cowell is the multi million selling creator, author and illustrator of How To Train Your Dragon. Her latest book is the second in the Wizards Of Once series. Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Phantom Atlas and Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports . The son of Franklin Brooke-Hitching, collector of the largest and most comprehensive library of British exploration and discovery ever accumulated, he is also a writer for the B...
A Q&A with Ian Rankin
November 25, 2018 06:00 - 19 minutesThe reading habits of bestselling author Ian Rankin - covering the likes of Charles Dickens, Alistair MacLean, RagnarJonasson...and Jilly Cooper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices