Episodes
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137: The Lads' September 2026 Reading Update
Alice and Bethany discuss what they've been reading in September, as Bethany makes a bold claim that she's read her favourite novel of 2026...
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136: The Lads' August 2026 Reading Update
Alice and Bethany mosey their way through their August reads, plus chat about a TV adaptation of a beloved book, AND tell you about an interesting upcoming event!
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135: The Lads' July 2026 Reading Update
What have Alice and Bethany been reading in July? Only one way to find out. This episode has been tagged as containing explicit content due to Alice quoting a VERY rude song. Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.
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134: The Lads' June 2026 Reading Update
What have Alice and Bethany been reading in June? You'll have to listen to find out...
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133: The Lads' May 2026 Reading Update
[Content note: several of the books discussed in this episode involve sexual violence] Alice and Bethany had a big reading month, though it was very heavy on the non-fic. We even read one book in common!
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132: The Lads' April 2026 Reading Update
What have Alice and Bethany been reading this month? Turns out, a WHOLE LOT and they liked it all! Huge amounts of recommendations for your earholes.
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131: The Lads' March 2026 Reading Update
What have Alice and Bethany been reading this month? Only one way to find out.
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130: The Lads' February 2026 Reading Update
Alice and Bethany get a little bit spicy with their February roundup...
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129: The Lads' January 2026 Reading Update
What have Alice and Bethany been reading this month? You'll just have to listen to find out...
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128: The Lads Choose Their 2025 Books of the Year
Alice and Bethany pick one book they read each month of 2025 and pit them against each other to determine their book of the year. Full lists available on the What Page Are You On account on Instagram!
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127: The Lads Return with a Mid-Year Roundup
Alice and Bethany catch up halfway through 2025 and chat about some new releases and backlist titles that have charmed them thus far.
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126: The Lads Give Their 2024 Books of the Year
Alice and Bethany make a cheeky little top 10 of their favourite books of the year! Head to our Instagram for the full list.
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125: The Lads Create Their 2024 Gift Guide
Doing a spot of Christmas book shopping and thirsty for recommendations? Alice and Bethany have you covered. They each choose a fiction, a non-fiction, a food and drink, a reissue and the book they'd most like someone to give them.
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124: The Lads Catch Up On Their Recent Reading Habits
Alice and Bethany catch up on what they've been reading, but it turns out it's been a weird reading year for them both. Much yapping lies ahead.
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123: The Lads Gather Autumn/Winter Recommendations
Alice and Bethany chat through a few of the books they're excited about for the rest of the year, and ask their author and bookseller friends for more recommendations! Because of the way we have to record episodes in advance, at least one of the books is already out, so if any of them sound good…
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122: The Lads Talk Forthcoming Film Adaptations
Following the escandalo that has dogged the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us, Alice and Bethany discuss a few forthcoming adaptations of books, plus one that's taking up a lot of Alice's brain space, released on the same day as this episode...
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121: The Lads Chat Big Date Energy AND Slowcoach
Alice and Bethany look inward and discuss the two books Bethany has released this year! First up, Big Date Energy, aka what happens when you try to write a romcom where the main character is more like 'The Friend', and then Slowcoach, where we talk about how weirdly horrible and borderline...
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120: The Lads Give Their Midyear Reading Roundup
Alice and Bethany talk through what they've been reading so far in 2024, and how not recording the pod has affected their reading habits.
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119: The Lads List Their 10 Books of the 21st Century
Inspired by the New York Times' list of the 100 greatest books of the 21st Century, Alice and Bethany each compile their own top 10s, and find they have only one book in common, but don't agree on what that book is about... Bethany's list: The Fact of a Body - Alex Marzano-Lesnevich What I Loved…
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118: The lads chat to Eliza Clark
Alice and Bethany have the huge pleasure of talking to girlie of the moment, Eliza Clark, largely about her new novel Penance but also about true crime, Tumblr, the wild success of Boy Parts and its upcoming stage adaptation!
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117: The lads chat body horror with Heather Parry
Alice and Bethany have the great pleasure of talking to Heather Parry about her short story collection This Is My Body Given For You, which is a gnarly little thing full of troubling images and ideas. She also talks about the great work she does at the Society of Authors, and lots more!
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116: The Lads Chat Unlikeable Female Characters with Anna Bogutskaya
Alice and Bethany have the great pleasure of talking to the film journalist and programmer Anna Bogutskaya about her new non-fiction book Unlikeable Female Characters! They take a dive into the world of 'unlikeable' women through film and TV from erotic thrillers to Skyler White via the Hays Code...
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115: Fat Talk with Virginia Sole-Smith
Bethany has the huge pleasure of chatting to Virginia Sole-Smith about her revolutionary new book Fat Talk: Coming of Age in Diet Culture, which investigates the radical possibility of abandoning our cultural fears around 'childhood obesity' to create bodily autonomy in children and beyond.
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114: The Lads Celebrate Death of a Bookseller
Alice's debut novel, Death of a Bookseller, is out NOW! So obviously Bethany had to ask her all the nosy questions about it!
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113: The lads chat to actual Katherine Heiny
Alice and Bethany have a whale of a time with the funny, smart Katherine Heiny, author of the new collection Games and Rituals, as well as the novels Standard Deviation and Early Morning Riser. Games and Rituals is out now!
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112: Q1 reading report
Alice and Bethany atone for not putting out an episode for the first three months of the year by telling you all about everything they've read in the first quarter of 2023.
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111: Our books of 2022
Alice and Bethany are BACK from their unplanned hiatus! And they've got a long, juicy episode for you about their favourite books of 2022, which obviously they should have recorded weeks ago... but didn't. Enjoy!
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110: The Lads Chat to Sara Gran
If you've been listening to WPAYO for a little while you'll know that a true Book of the Pod is Come Closer by Sara Gran. We are so hyped that she has a NEW book out, called The Book of the Most Precious Substance, and that we got to talk to her about it for this episode! The Book of the Most...
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109: The Lads Chat to Chelsea G Summers
Alice and Bethany have the great pleasure of interviewing Chelsea G Summers, author of the bloody and brilliant A Certain Hunger!
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108: The Lads Chat to Erin Kelly
Alice and Bethany have the extreme joy of interviewing friend of the pod, thee Erin Kelly, author of Alice's fave, The Poison Tree and Bethany's fave, The Burning Air, as well as huge bestseller He Said She Said! Her new novel, The Skeleton Key, is out on September 1.
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107: The Lads Had To Remove This Post
Alice and Bethany discuss the dark and delicious novella We Had To Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets, translated by Emma Rault. We Had To Remove This Post deals with the corrosive nature of repeated exposure to violence on a content moderator for a tech giant, and we loved it.
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106: The Lads Chat to Torrey Peters
It's no secret that WPAYO loved Detransition, Baby - we dedicated a whole episode to it! So we're beyond delighted to speak to Torrey Peters ahead of the British Book Awards, where she's nominated in the Discover category. Detransition, Baby is out now in paperback!
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105: Blockbusters: Red Dragon
Alice and Bethany go deep on Red Dragon by Thomas Harris as part of their Blockbusters series, since they both love Silence of the Lambs.
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104: The Lads Interview Joanne Harris
This week we had the huge pleasure of talking to literary legend Joanne Harris about her latest book, A Narrow Door, which is absolutely brilliant, thrilling and haunting. We also chatted about the great work done by the Society of Authors, and Joanne's generosity with informal creative writing...
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103: The Lads Talk Through Their TBR Piles
Alice and Bethany go through the five books they're each planning to read in the near future. If you want to see a list of the books, head to the podcast Instagram or Twitter!
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102: The Lads Predict the British Book Awards
Alice and Bethany take a look at a few categories from the British Book Awards and chat through their thoughts and feelings, as well as trying to predict what will win. Lots of chat, speculation and conjecture!
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101: The Lads Read New Animal
Alice and Bethany take messy gal fic into a darker direction with New Animal by Ella Baxter, which is out now from Picador.
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100: The Lads Interview Coco Mellors
Alice and Bethany absolutely loved Coco Mellors' glittering debut Cleopatra & Frankenstein, a portrait of a marriage in early noughties NYC, and in this episode they get to ask the author all about it! The book is available now from 4th Estate.
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99: The Lads Discuss Welcome To Your Life!
Bethany's adult debut novel is out NOW and she and Alice have a lil chat about the book and its creation! You can buy it from Waterstones here - https://www.waterstones.com/book/welcome-to-your-life/bethany-rutter/9780008469948
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98: The Lads Interview Catherine Ryan Howard
Bethany attempts to keep calm as she and Alice meet Catherine Ryan Howard, author of several of the best 21st century thrillers, including her latest novel 56 Days. Catherine talks about her frankly fascinating writing process, her relationship with true crime, writing a 'lockdown novel' and…
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97: The Lads Read Notes On An Execution
Alice and Bethany do a deep dive on the brilliant Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka, exploring the life and death of a murderer on death row and the women whose lives he affected.
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96: The Lads Chat to Lucy Foley
Alice and Bethany get to sit down with the 21st century's answer to Agatha Christie, the excellent Lucy Foley! They chat all things murder mystery as they celebrate the launch of Lucy's latest thriller, The Paris Apartment, which is out now.
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95: The Lads Read Attica Locke
Over the past two months, Bethany has become obsessed with the crime author Attica Locke, so this episode is a little introduction to her major themes and her most famous novel Bluebird, Bluebird.
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94: The Lads Do BookTok
Alice educates Bethany on the wonderful world of BookTok, a place that Alice is spending a lot of time these days. They talk virality, what makes a BookTok hit, and what publishers can do to hop on the TikTok train.
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93: The Lads chat to Daphne Palasi Andreades
If you don't know about Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades, where have you been?! It's one of the most anticipated books of the year, and in the words of Raven Leilani, 'an ode to girlhood'. We've been so lucky to talk to Daphne on today's episode, and we hope you enjoy the chat and the book,...
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92: The Lads' Books of 2021
Alice and Bethany wrap up the year in style and let you know their respective top 10s of 2021! For a full list, please see our Instagram account for WPAYO!
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91: Blockbusters: The Lads Read Agatha Christie
She's sold over 2 BILLION COPIES and is the most-translated author in history. Alice has never read any Agatha Christie, so the WPAYO gals read And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express.
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90: Dark Tales with Jen Campbell
Jen Campbell is a Proper Expert on fairytales, especially as they relate to disability and disfigurement, so Alice and Bethany were extremely keen to talk to her about her new book, The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers And Other Gruesome Tales. They travel around the world discussing the fairytale...
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89: Bethany Talks Romance with Lindsey Kelk
What are the essential ingredients of a romantic interest? Are people gagging for escapism right now? Why do you love Twilight so much? These are all questions that baby romance author Bethany asked very well-established romance author Lindsey Kelk to celebrate the publication of her new novel…
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88: Alison Rumfitt Tells You You're Worthless
Alice and Bethany celebrate the release of Tell Me I'm Worthless with an interview with the book's esteemed author Alison Rumfitt. A truly audacious addition to the great tradition of haunted house novels!