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The Booking Club
by Jack Aldane
Today’s best authors and commentators discuss their latest books and breakthroughs at their favourite restaurants | Hosted by Jack Aldane Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
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The Dawn of a Post-Literate Society, with James Marriott
Books are dying. Across the world the number of people reading is in free fall. Literacy is declining or stagnating in most developed countries. At universities, students are unable to read the books assigned to them by their teachers. Addictive digital entertainment technologies have colonised…
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The Case Against Assisted Death, with Kathleen Stock
In Do Not Go Gentle, acclaimed writer and philosopher Kathleen Stock tackles one of the great debates of our time: should we set up a system of assisted death? With her trademark sharp thinking and dry wit, the bestselling author of Material Girls argues that despite what some progressives might...
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The Quantity Theory of Morality, with Will Self (LIVE at Special Rider Books and Records)
This episode was the novelist and essayist Will Self’s first live interview celebrating the publication of his new novel, The Quantity Theory of Morality. We hosted Will alongside our events collaborators for the evening, Special Rider Books and Records at Shepherd's Bush Market, on 23rd April....
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Writing in the Age of Distraction, with Megan Nolan
Megan Nolan is an Irish author and journalist. She gained critical prominence after releasing her debut novel, Acts of Desperation, which received a Betty Trask Award in 2022. Her second novel, Ordinary Human Failings, was shortlisted for a number of awards. Nolan also writes essays, fiction and...
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Colossus: a novel, with Ross Barkan
Ross Barkan is a born and raised New Yorker, journalist and author of four novels. He is the co-founder of The Metropolitan Review, New York's youngest books and culture magazine. His latest work of fiction, Colossus, is summarised as follows: "A stark and unsettling portrait of success, in the...
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See You on the Other Side: a novel, with Jay McInerney
The eagerly anticipated final volume of Jay McInerney's stunningly accomplished and profoundly affecting fictional tetralogy: Brightness Falls, The Good Life, Bright Precious Days, and now See You on the Other Side It's early 2020 in New York, and the looming threat of a global pandemic begins to...
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Understanding the True Power of Story, with John Yorke
To command narrative is to control a sometimes frightening power. What is it that turbocharges some tales, and how is it possible to harness that potency? John Yorke’s groundbreaking bestseller, Into the Woods, revolutionised our understanding of story structure. This new book delves deeper into...
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Men, Love, and Modern Literature, with Lucas Oakeley
Joel Foster is a hapless twenty-something. His girlfriend, Beth Lewis, would likely have been a hapless twenty-something, too, had she not been obliterated by a very large cement truck. Some time after Beth’s tragic death, Joel is still trying to juggle grief with the world of modern dating. And...
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Who Will Remain: a novel, with Kasim Ali
Who Will Remain by Kasim Ali is a powerful new novel following a young man as he weighs up the life of safety that his parents want for him and another path on the streets outside his door, from the acclaimed author of Good Intentions. Amir has grown up in Alum Rock, Birmingham, under the care of...
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Franz Kafka's The Trial at 100, from The Battle of Ideas Festival 2025
This episode is lifted from a live recording that took place at The Battle of Ideas Festival 2025 in Westminster on Saturday 18th October. Jack draws together a panel of three speakers carefully selected to provide a modern perspective on the lasting significance of Franz Kafka's The Trial, which...
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The Ballad of a Small Player: from acclaimed novel to Netflix hit, with Lawrence Osborne
A riveting tale of risk and obsession set in the alluring world of Macau’s casinos, by the author of the critically acclaimed The Forgiven. As night falls on Macau and the neon signs that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle – “Lord Doyle” to his fellow players – descends into his casino...
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Bookish: Murder Speaks Volumes, with Matthew Sweet
Adapted from the major television series created by Mark Gatiss – out now! London, 1946. Gabriel Book is an erudite and unconventional London bookseller married to Trottie, the owner of the wallpaper shop next door. He is also a sleuth who uses the chaotic riches of his stock to crack the…
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Vulture: a novel, with Phoebe Greenwood
Catch-22 on speed and set in the Middle East, Vulture is a fast-paced, brilliant satire of the war news industry and its moral blind spots. An ambitious young journalist, Sara is sent to cover a war from the Beach Hotel in Gaza. The four-star hotel is a global media hub, promising safety and...
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Fiction First: The Booking Club LIVE
On Wednesday 16 July this year, The Booking Club in collaboration with Conduit Books launched Fiction First, an event dedicated to the experience and status of the modern novel and novelist. At 21Soho, we heard from a panel of 2025's most exciting debut writers about what led them to produce…
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The Fathers: a novel, with John Niven
In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth – no, sixth? – child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife…
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A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere, with James Bloodworth
An astonishing undercover investigation into the paranoid and misogynistic subcultures of the manosphere, by the Orwell Prize-longlisted author of Hired James Bloodworth. Rarely has there seemed a more confusing time to be a man. This uncertainty has spawned an array of bizarre and harmful...
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The Boys: a novel, with Leo Robson
London, 2012. Johnny Voghel is stuck. He has a dead-end job at a small university and a wilting relationship and is grieving the death of his parents. When his half-brother Lawrence returns to the old family home from Chicago after a period of estrangement, Johnny decides to do everything he can…
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What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Reinventing Your Life, with Henry Oliver
Our society tells us over and over that if we're going to achieve anything, we'd better do it while we're young. We fixate on stories of prodigies; we put our children in piano lessons or language classes as toddlers, hoping to give them the best shot at success we can. As for ourselves, too many...
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Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs, with Miranda Sawyer
When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. This fascinating pop history, exploring the mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the...
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Life, Death and Boxing, with Donald McRae
Donald McRae has been immersed in boxing for fifty years. He has followed fighters around the world and won multiple awards for his writing. But, in recent years, McRae’s love has waned, as criminality and corruption consume the soul of boxing. In 2018, grieving the death of his sister and with…
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How the British Empire Has Shaped the Globe, with Sathnam Sanghera
The British empire was built on slavery, but it also pioneered abolition. It spread democracy, but it also seeded geopolitical instability. It devastated nature but it also gave birth to modern notions of environmentalism. In this urgent sequel to Empireland, award-winning author and journalist...
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Why We Need a Global Food Philosophy, with Julian Baggini
How we live is shaped by how we eat. You can see this in the vastly different approaches to growing, preparing and eating food around the world, such as the hunter-gatherer Hadza in Tanzania whose sustainable lifestyle is under threat in a crowded planet, or Western societies whose food is farmed...
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The Proof of My Innocence, with Jonathan Coe
Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow’s Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. That is, until family friend Chris...
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Wonderful Words That Tell A Tale, with Tom Read Wilson
From famous wordsmith Tom Read Wilson comes another breathtaking adventure through the English language. Discover the fascinating origin stories behind the words we use in this delightful follow-up to Every Word Tells a Story, Wonderful Words That Tell A Tale, illustrated by Ian Morris. Unlock a...
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LIVE from The Battle of Ideas Festival 2024, with Geoff Norcott
The Battle of Ideas festival 2024, which took place at Church House in Westminster on 19 & 20 October, was a sell-out success. As part of the event, Jack Aldane hosted English comedian Geoff Norcott live for a lunchtime recording of The Booking Club in front of a packed room to discuss Geoff's...
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A History of the World in 47 Borders, with Jonn Elledge
People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different...
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The Knockout: Sport's Most Decisive Moment, with Andy Clarke
Andy Clarke, Sky Sports' lead boxing commentator and one of the nation's most respected boxing pundits, goes in search of the knockout: the most dramatic and devastating moment in sport. How does it feel to land that ultimate blow? How does it feel to suffer it? The Knockout assesses the impact…
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The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading, with Sam Leith
The stories we read as children are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures. In a pioneering...
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Technology is not the Problem, with Timandra Harkness
Technology has delivered a world that we expect to revolve around us, our needs and preferences, and our unique personalities. We willingly hand over intimate information about ourselves in return for a world that’s easier to navigate. We live in the Personalised Century, where we view ourselves…
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My Family: the Memoir, with David Baddiel
On the surface, David Baddiel’s childhood was fairly standard: a lower-middle-class Jewish family living in an ordinary house in Dollis Hill, north-west London. But David came to realise that his mother was in fact not ordinary at all. Having escaped extermination by fleeing Nazi Germany as a...
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Alchemy and the 2024 UK General Election, with Rory Sutherland
Rory Sutherland is the vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK and the co-founder of its Behavioural Science Practice. He is the author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense, writes The Spectator’s Wiki Man column, presents several series for Radio 4, serves on the advisory board of...
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Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, with Elizabeth Oldfield
What does it mean to live a good, whole and fulfilling life? And if the world really is ending, or at least expecting turbulent change, what kind of people will we need when it happens? In Fully Alive, Elizabeth Oldfield explores how we can build spiritual core strength for an unstable age.…
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The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play it, with Will Storr
For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, bestselling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are. From...
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🎄❄️🎅 MERRY CHRISTMAS! A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain, with Pen Vogler
In times of plenty, we stuff ourselves. When the food runs out, we're stuffed too. How have people in the British Isles shared the riches from our fields, dairies, kitchens and seas, as well as those from around the world? And when the cupboard is bare, who steps up to the plate to feed the...
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War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age, with Tom Holland
Pax is the third in a trilogy of books narrating the history of the Roman Empire. The series that began with Rubicon, and continued with Dynasty, now arrives at the period which marks the apogee of the pax Romana. It provides a portrait of the ancient world's ultimate superpower at war and at...
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Remi Adekoya and Kenan Malik on Race, Wealth and the Future of Solidarity
It’s Not About Whiteness, It’s About Wealth, Remi Adekoya What really matters when it comes to race? Western conversations on race and racism revolve around familiar themes; colonialism, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the ideology of white supremacism form the holy trinity of the race debate....
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Mortification: Eight Deaths and Life After Them, with Mark Watson
Mark Watson is generally accepted to be alive. And yet he's died many times. Not just on stage - though he'll tell you about that - but in other ways, too. There's been the death of a childhood dream. The death of his panel-show career. And then there was the time he died inside and nearly lost…
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This is Europe, with Ben Judah
What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of some 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our...
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Depp v Heard: The Unreal Story, with Nick Wallis
Depp v Heard: the unreal story is the definitive account of the gruelling court battles between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, by the reporter who was there. Using witness testimony and contemporaneous evidence, Nick Wallis has created a gripping reconstruction of the allegations of violence,...
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Feminism Against Progress, with Mary Harrington
In Feminism Against Progress, Mary Harrington argues that the industrial-era faith in progress is turning against all but a tiny elite of women. Women’s liberation was less the result of human moral progress than an effect of the material consequences of the Industrial Revolution. We’ve now left...
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How to Fight a War, with Mike Martin
Has any war in history gone according to plan? Monarchs, dictators and elected leaders alike have a dismal record on military decision-making, from over-ambitious goals to disregarding intelligence, terrain, or enemy capabilities. This not only wastes the lives of civilians, the enemy and one’s…
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I Am Not Nicholas, with Jane MacSorley
“I am not Nicholas Rossi!” gasps Arthur Knight through an oxygen mask in March 2022. Recently discharged from a Covid ward in Glasgow, he's in a wheelchair. The police say he’s Nicholas Rossi, suspected of faking his death and wanted for rape in Utah. The story makes headlines globally. When...
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The New Gurus, with Helen Lewis
Everywhere you look on the internet, people are giving - and receiving - advice. Advice that promises to transform our lives. How to eat. How to think. How to get rich. How to manage our time. Across 8 episodes on BBC Radio 4 programme The New Gurus, journalist and author Helen Lewis travels...
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Scoops, with Sam McAlister
She is the woman who clinched the 2019 interview with Prince Andrew, described as 'a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion'. She is many things beside: the first in her family to go to university; a trained barrister; a single mum; a master of...
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The Booking Club LIVE, with Martin Rowson
On 20 November 2022, The Booking Club podcast and Unbound teamed up to promote Rogues’ Gallery, a collection of the best satirical portraits from Martin Rowson’s Twitter #Draw Challenges. At Stoke Newington’s legendary Thai restaurant Yum Yum, voice of The Booking Club Jack Aldane hosted a live...
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The Identity Myth, with David Swift
As a society we have never been less connected. The internet and globalisation fuel ignorance and anger, while the disconnect between people’s reality and perceived identities has never been greater. Karl Marx outlined the idea of a material ‘base’ and politico-cultural ‘superstructure’.…
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The Value of a Whale, with Adrienne Buller
Public understanding of, and outcry over, the dire state of the climate and environment is greater than ever before. Parties across the political spectrum claim to be climate leaders, and overt denial is on the way out. Yet when it comes to slowing the course of the climate and nature crises,...
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A History of Bollocks Theories and How Not to Fall for Them, with Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge
From the Satanic Panic to the anti-vaxx movement, the moon landing to Pizzagate, it's always been human nature to believe we're being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are). But while it can be fun to indulge in a bit of Deep State banter on the group chat,...
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The Joy of Science, with Jim Al-Khalili
In this brief guide to leading a more rational life, acclaimed physicist Jim Al-Khalili invites readers to engage with the world as scientists have been trained to do. The scientific method has served humankind well in its quest to see things as they really are, and underpinning the scientific...
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The Life Inside, with Andy West
Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation. When Andy goes behind bars, he also confronts his inherited trauma: his father,...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Today’s best authors and commentators discuss their latest books and breakthroughs at their favourite restaurants | Hosted by Jack Aldane
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
HOSTED BY
Jack Aldane
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How many episodes does The Booking Club have?
The Booking Club currently has 94 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Booking Club about?
Today’s best authors and commentators discuss their latest books and breakthroughs at their favourite restaurants | Hosted by Jack Aldane Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How often does The Booking Club release new episodes?
The Booking Club has 94 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to The Booking Club on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Booking Club?
The Booking Club is created and hosted by Jack Aldane.
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