Page-Turning Plans: Looking ahead to 2025 • Episode #168
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Hello and welcome to the Book Club Review. I'm Kate. I'm Laura. And this is the podcast about book clubs and the books that get people talking.

As we gently close the book that is 2024 and open the shiny new hardback of 2025, it's the perfect time to reflect on our reading lives. At this time of year, the temptation is to make bold promises to ourselves about what, how, or even where we'll read in the coming year. More books, new genres, shopping our shelves, sticking to the backlist, keeping a log. It's time for plans and projects.

At this point, I would throw in a bit of recently acquired wisdom from time productivity guru Oliver Berkman. He of 4,000 Weeks and Meditations for Mortals fame. He points out that even if you had limitless time to read, you'd never get beyond a tiny fraction of all the books you want to get to.

It's worth, therefore, thinking carefully about what books you do want to spend your time reading. Once you've got that figured out, you might then aim to read daily-ish, whenever you get the chance, without setting yourself absolute rules about how much time you're going to spend. If you don't manage it one day, you might pick it up the next. When you get out your phone, make it the Kindle app you open rather than social media.

Listen to books while you do your household chores. Keep a book on hand and find a corner of your house that can become your reading nook, where everybody knows can leave you alone with your book for a bit.

As book podcasters, we think and talk about books more than most. But as readers, we're all too conscious of the problem of how to squeeze reading into busy lives. Neither of us has as much time to read as we'd like, but as a result, we are very, very good at finding ways to make the most of the time we do have. So join us as we kick off 2025 with our realistic reading resolutions and a little look ahead to all the amazing books waiting to be discovered. All that coming up here on The Book Club Review.

So Laura, very nice to see you. How was your Christmas? I had a great Christmas. It was a very low-key, chill Christmas. We moved over to my parents' place, which is just on the other side of Vancouver, for four nights, I think. My husband works in a hospitality, so he worked every day, but we got to see him every day too. And in the interim, there was three adults to one small person, which is a very good ratio for getting a lot of time to read.

Plus, with all the waves of presence and entertainment, my daughter was very well entertained. And I got through two books in the last four days, actually. Nice. Which is good for me. I love that your parents, who I know very well, are great readers. And I feel like they would be also quite sympathetic to someone who just wanted to sit down and read for a bit. Yes. Yes, they are. And so is my husband, actually. You know, when he came back on Christmas Day, he was like, OK, go

go sit down, read by the fire. I'll get dinner ready. The dream present. I mean, it works because he's a chef and you know. What about you? Ours was, it was nice. It was really nice. I feel like it was a lot of pillar to post trips to see various branches of the family. And I didn't get that much reading done. But on the other hand, yeah, it's been nice. I'm

I'm dying to hear about your reading resolutions. But before we get to that, our third musketeer, Phil Chafee, is currently sunning himself on the beaches of Thailand. I caught up with him before he left.

How was 2024 for you as a reading year? Still slightly reeling from the amount of books I know you managed to read in 2023. I won't ask you to put a number on it. I will put a number on it because it's truly, I'm about to hit, we are speaking a week before the end of the year, I'm about to hit 200, which is insane. It's unhinged and it means I've been spending far too much time reading and listening to books this year. Too much time reading and listening to books.

Who says that? What a problem to have. I feel like we must, listeners are going to want to know, how have you achieved this? How have I achieved? It's basically, I mean, I've discussed this before. A huge portion of that is listening to books, not at one speed, like at 1.0 speed, but fairly sped up. And

taking long walks every day. So I have a long walk to work every morning. And then I listen when I'm having lunch. I listen when I'm doing dishes. I listen in random odd moments. And then I also always am reading some books. I'm always reading some dumb book before bed to

to do a couple of chapters at night before I'm exhausted. And unless it's a really good page turner, which sometimes keeps me up, but it's fairly rare. And then I usually have some slightly more elevated books I'm also reading, which I'll do more of that on the weekend. But that's my crazy reading schedule. And I should probably do less. I should probably do other things with my life. But there we are.

Yeah, that patchwork quilt that you've been meaning to make. That's not getting done, is it? Although that would be very nice to do while listening, actually. You're right. Of course. That's actually one of the activities that would be great. That or coloring or things where you're using slightly different parts of your brain are very good. Washing dishes, I think, is perfect, but...

because you don't really have to think about it too much. When I'm listening and I'm cooking to a recipe, I really mess up the recipe all the time because I get lost in the, I don't know if you found this, but you've forgotten something or you just haven't paid that much attention because you're so focused on what you're listening to. Will you read more than one book at one time? Will you have a few things on the go or do you tend to like to focus on just one?

I almost always have multiple ones on the go. But usually I'll at least have a fiction, nonfiction. I'll always have...

I call them dumb quote books. I'll always have some sort of thrillery, pulpy, sci-fi, fantasy, spy, some genre fiction that I'm reading at night before bed. And then I'll have other things during the day. Sometimes I'm just listening alone, going through three or four and alternating. How about some other intentions for 2025 for you? Intentions?

One of my favorite things I did in 2024, and this was not before a bad reading, but I'm sure I've told you that I love Le Carre, John Le Carre. And in 2024, I read all, I think, nine of his George Smiley novels. Have you read any of them, Kate? Or do you know George Smiley at all?

Yeah, I feel like I've read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spot. Is that one of the George Smiley ones? That's one of them. And that's like the start of the Carla trilogy, where Smiley is sort of this MI6 very senior figure, and Carla is his opposite number in the KGB, and they are very distantly fighting each other out. And Tinker Tailor is one of the first in that. But then there's this whole broader series...

which follows Smiley, I think the first one was written in 1960 and the last one in, gosh, 2014 or something. He kept them going. Smiley lived preposterously long. And Smiley is this very famously drab guy who theoretically you would never notice because he's this drab, paunchy, everyman who's not at all glamorous or James Bond-y, but he's just an absolutely brilliant spy.

Anyway, I read through these chronologically, chronologically by publishing. So at the rate at which Le Carre came out with them, then I actually just finished a couple of days ago, his son came out with this book, Carla's Choice, which is another Smiley novel in the Le Carre style, which was actually pretty good and pretty good at feeling like a Le Carre novel. Is this Nick Harkaway? Yes.

And that was good. I would not read that without having read a lot of the La Carre books, particularly The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and probably Tinker Tailor. But it was an incredibly rewarding experience. So I'm mulling over comparable series like that that I could jump into. And I have not settled, but it was very rewarding.

And it was so pleasurable. Every time I slogged through some literary thing or some drab, depressing thing, I would let myself read one of the La Cares. So it was very pleasurable. I haven't settled where. There are various series, highbrow series, I feel like I should probably read. So one thing I was contemplating is Updike Rabbit books. I've never read any of those. Or My Struggle, the Knausgaard Norwegian. That's six books, I think.

It sounds potentially like a slog, but we'll see. I've read one of them and it wasn't a slog to read. He writes beautifully. So that's why they're good. But I just found he's just so self-involved.

I actually think I read two of them. But after that, I was just like, you know what, I'm out. I do have one of my multiple book groups. We are just very slowly going through Proust. And we just finished the fourth book. But we're doing them one every three or four months, basically. Because these are obviously big tomes that move slowly. But that has been incredibly rewarding and exciting.

pleasurable and it's possible we'll finish up there's three more to go in the southern book series and it's possible i will finish those up this year but that has been a very nice experience we'll see have you read proust you have not i've read one of them and i have this real sense of what a rich path it would be should i choose to take it

I think the key definitely for me, but I'm sure for a lot of people would be doing what you're doing and reading it and being able to have those conversations and having

that slight commitment to helping you get through it? Because they're not easy, are they? They're not easy. It helps to talk about it. Also, I think it's been helping taking our time because you really do digest it. And then picking up the next one in several months, I don't know, it's forced me to go a bit slower, because I tend to just rush through things these days, and to really sit with it.

bit more and hopefully by the point I'm done I'll have spent several years slowly reading through Proust obviously in addition to everything else not just reading Proust which I don't that sounds probably too much and then you'll be able to come on the pod and we'll be able to interrogate you about whether or not it's changed your life exactly which I doubt

And how about any titles coming out that you're looking forward to? Is anything on your radar that you're anticipating? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to anticipate the debut authors just because you...

I have to wait for the reviews to come in and I'm not getting advanced reader copies or anything. I will say there are some writers I really love who have some stuff coming up. Natasha Brown has her second novel coming out. I know you were, I think I read her Assembly at your recommendation, I feel like. Yeah, that's so good. It was amazing and it was...

more a novella, but it was just like one of those sort of finely carved diamonds that you could barely critique. It was such a perfect little book.

And she has this new book coming out called Universality. Ocean Vuong has his second novel coming out as well. I loved his first one. Ada Calhoun has her first novel. She's a writer who wrote also a poet about her father and Frank O'Hara. Have you read it? No, it's just it's so funny. It's so funny.

It sits upstairs unread on my bookshelves. And I keep meaning to read it. And whenever I talk to people who've read it, they're like, yeah, that book's so great. I was like, oh, yeah, I really want to read it. I read about a third of it. I was enjoying it. Yeah, it's great. So it's about being the child of bohemians, basically. And her father was a journalist who traded

tried to write a biography of Frank O'Hara. So it's also about Frank O'Hara, the mid-century New York poet, but it's also about her father and it's about her relationship with her father, her relationship with Frank O'Hara. It's really well crafted and I'm very excited to see what she does as a novelist. There's also a new Chimamanda Noguchi Adichie book. Yes. Which...

Of course, we will all be reading. I don't know what it's about, but I absolutely will pick it up probably on its very first day. There's a new Gary Steingart book coming.

His pandemic book, which was this sort of farce about a group of friends who go to upstate New York and get this house during COVID, was a complete delight. There's not a lot of literary comic authors, but I feel like Gary Stoenker is one of them and is always very fun. There's a translation of an older book.

Hong Kong book coming out. We were on the Nobel Prize this last year. I anticipate there are probably a whole bunch of these coming out. As we talked about, one of the great things about the Nobel Prize is

a whole industry of, well, translate everything that they've written. There's a new prequel to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I will probably have as a bedtime reading. But those books are always slightly derivative, but very fun. There's like new Katie Kitamura coming out. She had that book set in the

and the hague which was very spare i know you struggled with it you liked it and i didn't only because i just felt she was overly enchanted with belgium i just didn't share the kind of exoticism

But yeah, afterwards I felt I'd been a little bit unfair because it was really beautifully written and I felt like I'd been unduly dismissive of it. Yeah, I did feel like you that it was so, I felt it was very beautifully written but also slightly too icy to really pack a punch. But I don't know if the fault was mine or not. So I will read her new one with interest.

And then I am always eternally hopeful that Robert Caro is going to finish up his biography of LBJ and they will announce that that is coming out in two months or something. Can you imagine? I can. I imagine it a lot. This is one of my main literary goals is not my goal for him to complete this before before he gets too old to do so, let us say.

And yeah, and then there's some other... You never know at this point before the year what will all come out next year, because I feel like they often release... Announced books are coming out three months before they do. So we don't entirely know what's on the radar next year. One thing we don't have to worry about is that there won't be enough books. Indeed. I feel that's true. And I love your resolution to read less. Yeah.

We'll see if I succeed. Just try and read less, Phil. For God's sake. You put the rest of us to shame, but in the best way. Thanks so much. I've loved hearing about your reading plans and projects for 2025. And I can't wait to talk to you about some or all of these books, plus all the book club books we might read this year on the pod. Look forward to it. Thanks, Kate. So Phil's reading less in 2025. Don't you just love that? I do. I do love that. I'm definitely not reading less.

In 2025, I hope. I hope I'm reading better in 2025, that I'm enjoying it more. The only resolution I have, perhaps, which is slightly along similar lines with Phil, is that...

I love reading. Like most of my reading happens at bedtime. But what that can mean is that I don't talk to my husband because, you know, we get our daughter down, we're tired, and then I just pick up a book and don't talk to him. It's just kind of antisocial. I feel like I should probably... And he's happy because he thinks that's great. You love reading. It makes you happy. But when do we talk then, Kate? Maybe this is kind of where Phil's coming from. He's like, maybe I should be talking to human beings or doing something else. I think he feels he should be getting out more, yeah. Yeah.

Too many evenings by the far side for him. Well, it's about balance, isn't it? But at the same time, we don't lead balanced lives. I don't know about you, but it always feels like a scramble between fitting in work and then you get home and it's like just cooking and sorting everything out. And then, you know, you finally fall into bed and there's been no time to talk to your husband or your significant other. Like, when would you do that? Yeah.

And I think I notice when I have taken time out for reading, in my case, usually that means staying up really late, which is great. Like love reading late into the night. But then there's a price to pay for that. And so, yeah, for me this year, it's going to be about trying to read one book at a time. I'm going to try really hard. I love doing that in the summer last year where I would just go to the bookshop.

choose a book, take that book, read that book, stay focused on that book. And then when I finished it, I would go back to the bookshop and get the next book. Now, I don't think that's not realistic. I wanted to carry on with that. And as soon as I got back to London, it just completely fell by the wayside.

But I think there's something about that intention of just being on one book at a time. My strategy for making that work, because I'm pretty sure that if I just say, right, I will only read one book, I just know that isn't going to work. My strategy for making it work is to have multiple copies of that book in multiple formats so that I can be listening to it in different ways, right? Physical copy, Kindle copy, and then audio on Spotify and just make sure that they're all available so that whenever I have a few minutes...

I can be reading. And I think this is partly Phil's secret as well, is that he makes the books fit into his daily life. He'll be listening as he's walking or listening as he's doing household chores and then he's reading on the page as well. And I don't know why, but that seems very...

Yeah, it's a good habit that I want to try and do a bit more of that. It's a habit I used to have in London with the commute. And it always was a way for me to read more nonfiction as well. I'm not interested in listening to fiction as an audiobook. And yet nonfiction, it's almost my preferred way to engage with a book.

I am currently listening to a personal finance book because it's that time of your people. It's called Finance for the People by Paco de Leon, Getting a Grip on Your Finances. And I started listening to it first for free on the Libby app, which I recommend to everyone. A very simple way to make audiobooks affordable because they're free through your library. But because it's a personal finance book, I was like, I need a physical copy of this. So I just picked it up as well.

And I am planning on listening and digging into the written version with a highlighter actually on my holiday because I know how to live, Kate.

Well, if you're in the mood for reading something like that, I think you've got to capitalize on it, right? I had a little intention as well. Phil was talking about reading a short story a day, and I was given a copy of this book of essays by E.B. White, which I actually have read before. I love E.B. White. If you haven't read him, he's the author of Charlotte's Web. Most people, I would imagine, would have read that.

that and encountered him. But he was an essayist. He wrote for years and years and years, these wonderful little pieces for the New Yorker, and they're all collected up. And there's something about reading him. He's so warm and interested in life, almost in that way that makes you more interested in life. And there's a kindness and a humanity that runs through his work in this very tangible way. And anyway,

Yeah.

one of these a day. And I think that would just be a very nice way of making sure that every day I was reading something so beautifully written because he was such an exquisite prose stylist. And you just feel when you read him like internalizing some of that. Yeah, being reminded to be kind and thoughtful. And poetry, Laura, 2025. Really? Well, you know what? It's been creeping up on me for a while. I have long wanted to do an episode themed around poetry.

And I want this to be the year that I start incorporating a bit of that into my life. Because you know what? Whenever I read it, I'm always like, this is so great. Like just wonderful, meaningful way to engage with words and thoughts in a way that makes you feel something and gives you something, right? I feel like you get that in a very concentrated way with poetry. But also, if you don't have much time, that's just a brilliant way of working it in. So yes, maybe the year that I start boring on about poetry.

Or not. Maybe I'm wrong about poetry. I might try it. I'm like, you know what? I was right to avoid this. Yeah.

Who's going to join you for that podcast, Kate? That's what I have to ask. My friend Joseph, he did a podcast called Novel Thoughts that I really enjoyed for a while. That has slightly fallen by the wayside. He was a contributor on that show, but he let me know the other day that he is going to be starting up his own show starting soon. And that's going to be Books and Conversations. So I'm really looking forward to that. But he turns out to be, of his own accord, genuinely, from the heart, a poetry reader. And I was like, great, maybe you could be the person. Yeah.

to guide me through it. And I know a poet, one of my friends who comes to the books quiz, this regular wonderful quiz I go to in the Betsy Trotwood in London. I'm very much looking forward to getting back into those this year. Anyway, he is on my quiz team. His name is Will Wootten and he is a proper published poet.

And yeah, I think my main question is going to be, is poetry something that as readers we should be engaging with? Like, are we missing out if we don't ever drift towards the poetry section of the bookshop? I know I don't. Or is it actually quite a separate branch that maybe isn't something that's worth engaging? I'm just curious about that. I'm curious to know whether it's going to be something I want to take on board and do more of or not. And I feel a podcast episode is the way to find out. I would listen to that episode. Yeah.

There you go. All right. Books to get excited about then. I have more reading resolutions. Goodness, Kate. I've made a list. Please continue. I've been taking this seriously. My first reading resolution is similar but dissimilar to yours. So one, I only ever read one book at a time. I feel quite anxious if I have more than one book on the go at a time. Doesn't everyone read three or four? No.

No, it's bad.

that I want to read. Because I usually operate on the, I need a book to read, now go to the bookshop approach. But it's not so easy to get to a bookshop where I live for a good one. And then when I do go, I might not find quite what I'm looking for. Now, thanks to you, dear Kate, and my husband, I have

slew of gift certificates, guys, listeners, which will allow me to buy books for maybe two to three months. Very generous gifts, but let's be honest, I'm going to use them quickly. They're not going to last too long. So in the short term, I have a stack of books I want to read, thanks to my initial spend on these gift certificates. And then in the longer term, I plan to go find a new book or two every weekend when I go to

hope to always have books that I'm excited to read, which is not usually the case with me. I usually am kind of stumped and then have to go figure out what it is I'm going to read. Do you want to know what's in this deck? Yeah, what have you got? I have Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adu. Have you read these? These are short stories. I did read them. Only one of them is about Jonathan Strange, which disappointed me. I didn't have that expectation at all, so I think I'm okay. It's really good though. The one about Jonathan Strange is really good.

I also have the very secret Society of Irregular Witches, which was a gift from you. You chose it for me, especially for easy holiday reading. Yeah, that's very easy. It's very cozy.

cozy fantasy romance. And I hadn't really meant to read it. I sort of idly like, oh, I'll just try this. It was recommended on the New York Times pod. And I was feeling the run up to Christmas stress. I was just like, I just want to read something cozy and easy. And it turned out to be so much what I wanted to read that I actually ended up reading it twice.

It's this really lovely, warm story about this main character who's a witch and she ends up going to this house to be a tutor for three young children who turn out also to be witches. There's a whole backstory about how witches aren't ever supposed to congregate because when they do, magic can become very unruly and dangerous and so they live...

quite separated lives and she's lonely, right? And so she ends up going to this house, being this illicit tutor in this situation where these children, you know, the found family who are looking after them want them to be able to stay together. And then there's this grumpy librarian who also lives in the house who has his own story of how he came to be there. And it's all delightfully obvious. Clearly there are sparks. Clearly the sparks are going to fly. And they do. And it was just what I wanted. It was great. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, it's coming on holiday with me, as is The Husbands, which was one of your forgotten favorite books of 2024. Oh, The Husbands in the Attic. Yeah, I love that. I was telling my husband the premise of that book and his eyes were round. It's just like, well, every time they go up, a new one comes down. And I said, yeah. And I said, the problem is that sometimes when she doesn't like them, she has to come up with an excuse to make them go up into the attic so she can get rid of them. And it's not easy. Yeah.

I'm looking forward to that. I also have another Kate recommendation, All That Glitters, A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art. Oh, I hope you enjoy that one. I love the US cover of that one as well. I stole that, well, borrowed off a family friend. And then I'm actually really excited about my next book club book. Is this on your radar? Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. Yeah, only because the cover is so amazing. It's got these incredible, they look like googly eyes. It's so fantastic. Yeah.

googly eyes set on an ancient Greek face. But it's a novel, right? It is a novel. And what is it about? I feel like we need the blog. I'm not entirely sure what it's about.

On the island of Sicily, amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city. They've herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gellin, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians, if and only if they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides.

Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people, but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

And it's told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity and human will throughout the ages. Doesn't that sound great? It does sound good. Okay, I only have one other reading resolution, which is that I'm going to start sending you more books that I've read that I like and think you will like. You mean physically or just telling me about them? Physically. Oh, great. Physically. That'd be so nice. Yeah.

Wouldn't it be nice? Book post. This is one I just finished, Inkblood Sister Scribe by Emma Torres, which was 100 notable books of 2023, New York Times. So good. Is it fantasy? Yes, it is fantasy. It's got that kind of gothic fantasy cover that's almost quite generic. I don't like the cover. Yeah, I really don't like the cover. It does it a disservice. It's about magic books and it's a thriller and it's got everything you could want, Kate. I think you will like it a lot. That does sound good. When can you send it? Okay.

Well, the Canada post strike has ended. So in theory, in theory, I could send it this week. No, I've got a nice little stack of stuff. Actually, unfinished business for me from 2024. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Finishing the Emposium by Olga Tukartuk, because we're going to do an episode on that. And My Friends by Hisham Attar. I'm going to book bar the week after next.

to sit in on the book club that Chrissy's doing with him and I know Phil told me like various people were so surprised that that didn't make the shortlist and were disappointed only because they loved it so much so I definitely definitely want to read that and also I've got my own little guilty pleasure affair still going strong which is these wonderful books that I just love so much and

There's a series, they're called The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon. They're self-published, they're by an author called Beth Brower. But it's crazy to me, they are so good. It's insane that they're not published by a major publisher. And I sort of feel like either there's a reason why she's doing it this way, and it's intentional, or they haven't been picked up and they will be because they are just so great. There's eight of them, she's going to write more.

They're set in the 19th century, this area of London called St. Crispian's, which is between where I am here in Camden and Primrose Hill in North London. It's so atmospheric. You feel like you're walking the streets. It's full of these incredible characters that you just fall in love with. The main character, the heroine, you're just totally kind of, well, it's her diary, so obviously you're very much on her side and see things from her point of view, but she is so charming.

They're just delightful. They're absolutely delightful. They're so funny and inventive. And there's a kind of simmering away romance plot. There are various people who you kind of think, oh, could it be this person? Could it be this person? And it's all held very nicely in suspension. She doesn't give too much away. They're great. I just adore them. They were so much fun. I don't think they're available in Canada, which isn't surprising if they're self-public. Well, they're on Kindle.

I want to load my Kindle up with those for my holiday. I had two physical copies and I gave them both to my mother for Christmas. Covers are great as well, aren't they? Yes. They're just, oh, they've just been such a delight.

If you like, and I do not say this lightly, if you enjoy Georgette Heyer, these are not the same and they're not trying to be, but there is something of the, she has the same kind of like cleverness with characters and dialogue. It's all very sparkling and witty and full of literary illusions, actually.

more so than Georgia Hare. All of that just bubbling away beneath the surface as well, which is just great. Genuinely, there's been moments where she'll put in a little bit of poetry, like the characters just discovering Ralph Waldo Emerson and his poetry. And so it's this particular one, I think it was volume five, had a lot of that in it. And it was great. There were lines where I was underlining because they felt so meaningful when they were presented to me in that way. It was really great. What a find. How did you find them? I found out about them because my friend Sean, Sean breathes books. I had him on for the Patreon. We did a little episode for

for the weekend show I do for that. And we were just, you know, shooting the breeze about things we liked. And he was, ah, have you read these books? I wondered because he said, I don't know anyone English who's read them. I think they're obviously perhaps

better known in America. I'm not sure she's American or Canadian. She is. She lives in Salt Lake City. He said, I don't know anyone, particularly I guess a Londoner, who knows about them. And the reason that's interesting to me is because now I've read them, this pocket of London that she's writing about, it feels like a character in its own right. And once you've read these books, you kind of want to go and walk the streets and see if you can find any traces of it or where it might have existed. They sound great. They're so good. But now, time to look ahead. Oh, yes. That's what we're here for, right?

I rarely look ahead. Can I just say that I am the weakest link here? I enjoyed listening to Phil's recommendations and research, but I rarely look ahead at the publishing year. Yeah. Do you? Yeah.

Well, I get the bookseller, which is the trade magazine here in the UK. I get that delivered every week. They, of course, constantly are doing previews, usually three or four months ahead. So right now, the one that just came is telling me about what's coming out in March. And of course, the industry, they're all thinking a year ahead, aren't they? When they're reading and commissioning and...

figuring things out like it's only readers and the people who are buying the books we're the last people in the chain right and I feel generally speaking I'm in that category but I do get this little bit of a sense of what's coming up and occasionally I will see things and think oh great I'm excited that's on the way so there were a few things that jumped out at me obviously the Natasha Brown that Phil mentioned universality it's called I agree with Phil I thought assembly was an

absolutely perfect jewel of a novel. It was really so beautifully written and so impeccably constructed. So I'm excited about that one. I think that's probably going to be great. Are you excited about the publication of the third book in Rebecca Yaros' Romantic series that, you know, we were such fans of? Onyx Storm, it's called. I have low standards sometimes when it comes to romance and fantasy, but those books are terrible. I read the first one and

And I read 20 pages of the second one. I was like, no, this is like eating bad junk food. And it makes you feel bad about yourself, even while you're reading it. So no, Kate, I will not be reading Onyx Storm. I mean, I think I liked it more than you. I did enjoy it. I felt it had a good propulsive quality. But yeah, you know, and I had no interest in reading the second one and will not be there for the third one. But of course, many, many people will be. So it'll be interesting to see how it does. What else is coming up? I

I think I'm more cynical about debut novels with buzz, whereas I do look forward to new releases from authors who I've read before. So, for example, when you set this task for me and I did a bit of research, Curtis Sittenfeld was an author who I Googled. I'm like, she's prolific. She brings out one book a year and they're always highly enjoyable reads. And yes, lo and behold, she has a new collection of short stories coming out.

called Show Don't Tell. And it seems like her typical fare, her shtick is always to, how do we describe it, to focus on characters and scenarios that touch on fame or extreme wealth or privilege in some ways. You know, she wrote Rodham about Hillary Clinton. That's a very funny episode if you want to find it in our back catalogue. Such fond memories of Rodham. Yeah.

Kate did not feel comfortable with the sex. Sex was awful. The bad sex. It's just terrible. And she also wrote American Wife, which was a fictionalized account of Laura Bush. So she has her thing, but it's an enjoyable thing. And I like it. And she's a great writer. So I'm looking forward to that. I also just read this delightful novel. This is one that's also coming in the post over to you.

called The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. And it is a fantastical detective novel. So it's set in a fantasy world that is very strange, where the civilization has these walls, concentric walls around the landmass. And it's because every wet season, so whenever that is, these titans, these huge creatures the size of mountains,

come and try to get in and they have to fight them off. Within this quite bizarre, complex world, there's a detective story and it's super fun. A Holmes and Watson style detective duo takes the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist. He's got a new book coming out. And I was like, I will absolutely read that. Who's that boy? Robert Jackson Bennett. I only discovered him...

I don't know, three weeks ago? Yeah, great. Yes, that's going to come to you and I'm going to read his latest. I mean, it also sounds good. And you think, like, it wouldn't be hard to carve out time to read that book. No, no, it would not. There are books and books. Perhaps on that front, though, I'm coming back to our New Year's resolutions. I want to read more challenging books. I want to intersperse the challenging stretch novels with books.

the pleasure novels and ideally have more of an overlap. You know, I always remember when my book club read Hilary Mantel's novel set in Saudi Arabia and now I can't remember the name of that. And I had slightly put it off, you know, in the way you do sometimes with book club books. And then I read the first page and I was like,

ah, like, why did I put this off? Because the best authors are both fantastic writers and fantastic storytellers. You know, and obviously Hilary Mantel is the top of the crop, but oh, she's, Kate's Googling it. Eight months on Gaza Street. Have you read that? You should. So good. So more challenging, but very good books. Yeah, I didn't manage to get to that one. I remember you talking about it. I pulled out a few more. Oh, I know. In May, The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien.

Do you remember how much we liked her book?

Gosh, another one I need to Google. I do. She's Canadian. And I read that on holiday. So I have quite fond memories of it. Do not say we have nothing. That's right. Now, my book club, on the other hand, found that quite hard work. Well, it was hard work, but it was very, very, very rewarding. And I think the thing is, you and I, we stuck with it and we got the reward. But I have a book downstairs called On Reading, which is a wonderful collection of essays and one that I idly pick up every once in a while and I'll read one. And she's in there. Her essay is called Spinoza's Rooms. And I

I read it the other day and it is just so wonderful. The writing is so beautiful, but also fascinating.

so packed with ideas and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I just thought, oh yeah, she's such a good writer. So then when I saw this was coming out, so this is called The Book of Records from the book, a shortlisted author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing, a high concept time traveling meditation on fate, creativity, history, and human migration. So I thought, yeah, that could be interesting. And then June, The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, which Phil mentioned, the award-winning author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Crafts, A Tale of Unexpected Friendship and Second Chances,

in this innovative, playful novel that explores the foundations of life in America for those at the margins of society. In August, a book called Catabasis by R.F. Quang. In this follow-up to Yellowface, two rival Cambridge academics must journey to hell and back to save the soul of their advisor. Now, Yellowface, I think, was a very divisive book. I have had many conversations with people who really hated it.

But also people who, like me, really loved it. I think it depended very much on how uneasy you felt about the main character who was so unlikable. I enjoyed the construct of the book and the way that she was using that character to really...

launched this wonderfully barbed critique I thought at the public industry and the institutional racism embedded within it and all of these kinds of things which I was quite dazzled by I thought she did that really effectively but also woven up in this very propulsive thriller plot yeah I was really impressed by Yellow Face and so I'll be very interested to read a follow-up to that

Is it a sequel or just a... It says follow-up. So maybe not sequel. I don't know what that means. More like this is the next, maybe it's the next book from her that isn't a fantasy. It's like real world. Or maybe they are connected. Who could say? Kate, you know who is not publishing a new book in 2025? Jilly Cooper? Well, no, no. She's more likely to release a new book than this individual. Oh, I don't know. I feel like I'm at the books quiz. Who could it be?

Patrick Rothfuss. Patrick Rothfuss. Of course he's not. He's never going to finish that trilogy. 13 years since he wrote The Name of the Wind. Yeah. Have you looked him up? Yes, I googled it. What's his latest excuse? I don't know. No. I don't know. He made enough money and writing's hard. I feel like that would be, I feel like that's kind of his excuse.

Yeah, I don't. And I get that. I feel like once you're successful, you know, yeah, it's hard. You have to love it. Motivation goes. I mean, he always says, you know, when you look up his blogs or whatever, that he's slow and that it takes him a long time. So he might surprise us. But yeah, so I imagine, yes, if there was a new Rothfuss book coming out in 2025, we would know about it.

I check in. I see what he's up to. There'll also be a new Thursday Murder Club book coming from Richard Osman, apparently in September. My favourite. Which is nice to see. You know, that's just become, though, like a kind of cosy, comforting, a bit like Emmerdale Farm or Neighbours. They're just things that, you know, they're in the world. They're reassuring. They're pleasant. Are you talking about yourself or just generally? It's not how I feel about reading them. It's just how I feel about the fact that they exist.

Okay. All right. Got it. Do you read them? Okay. You know, I was just trying to clarify that. Lord, no. I read the first one. I was like, this isn't for me.

And I wouldn't judge because the author that sprang to my mind when you were talking about that is Emily Henry, who has a new book coming out. Of all the romance writers, she really is the top of the bunch. She writes great characters. The dialogue is zippy. It is fairly formulaic, but it's delightful. And I will probably read all of her books forevermore. I need to try one. If you were going to read just one Emily Henry, which one would you read? Well, I feel as if they all have entirely blown...

blurred into one another. The one where they're both editors in publishing and they have retreated to a small town and bumped into each other there.

Can't remember the name of that one. It might be the one that is getting adapted into a movie. I just saw that. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, not by Emily Henry, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which I have never read, but one day will. That's being turned into a movie or series this year. Book Lovers, I think is the one you were talking about. Okay. Yeah. Book Lovers. I would recommend that one to start.

Nora is a cutthroat literary agent at the top of her game. Her whole life is books. Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers, and he's Nora's work nemesis.

Nora's been through enough breakups to know that she's the one men date before finding they're happy ever after. To prevent another dating dud, Nora's sister has persuaded her to swap her city desk for a month's holiday in Sunshine Falls. It's a small town straight out of a romance novel, but instead of meeting sexy lumberjacks, handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie. She's no heroine, he's no hero, so can they take a page out of an entirely different book?

Do it. Again, I could carve out time to read that quite easily. And then her People We Meet on Vacation, which is not one of my favourites, is the first that's being adapted for the big screen in 2025. All right, my last highbrow foray to get us back on track is Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith. I

A collection of essays that sets tributes to the dead from Hilary Mantel to Martin Amis, alongside reflections on everything that fizzes with life and controversy, from art to relationships and the internet. I love Zadie Smith's essays so much. They're my favourite thing she writes.

They seem like the perfect thing to listen to. Yeah, especially if she reads them. That'd be so great. Walk into work listening to Zadie Smith. Yeah. Well, if you want to do that and you haven't done it already, Intimacies, which is her very slim collection that she wrote during lockdown, is wonderful. I adored those. And they're very short. And yeah, I assume they're on audio. They would be great to listen to.

But yeah, so good things. Lots of good things coming up. Lots of good things. And I am feeling very charged up and ready to take on the new year. And thanks in large part to all my reading time I've had over the past few days. Yeah, we'll get a bit of reality check when we go back to work. We'll just go back to our usual coming home tired and grumpy. It's going to be hard. Yeah.

Well, you've got a holiday. You'll be fine. I do. I do. I get to go back for four days, which will be quite full on because I have something due on the last day. But yes, then at least I'll get a week off and I can come back and talk about my winter holiday reading. Well, and I'm looking forward to getting our teeth into the Emposium where I think Phil and Sarah are going to be joining us for that one. And I can't wait to find out what your book club thought of it. No comment.

That's nearly it for this episode. You'll find all the books mentioned in the show notes. If you're looking for inspiration in your reading life over the coming year, why not subscribe to the Book Club Review Patreon? In addition to the various special episodes you'll find on there, you'll get the Book Club Review Weekend, my weekly-ish bonus episode just for patrons, featuring Laura's reading updates and regular chats with friends of the pod.

Laura and I have cooked up a new feature called One Book Wonder that allows us to talk about those books that slip through the cracks between regular episodes. Just out? Listen in for our thoughts on Good Material by Dolly Alderton. You get all that at the entry level, but at the higher tier, you can also join the podcast book club and come and talk books with me in person at the end of every month over Zoom or listen back anytime if you can't make the live session.

In January, we're reading the novel that appeared on many a Best of the Year list, Martyr, by Kava Akbar. In February, we're reading All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Brinkley, a museum guard's quest to find solace and meaning in art. And in March, it's short stories with Hateship, Friendship, Loveship, Courtship, Marriage by Alice Munro.

But will they make for good book club reads? Join me and the book clubbers over on Patreon and find out. Join our bookish community, get brilliant book recommendations and get the warm glow from knowing that you're supporting me in making the show. Head to patreon.com forward slash the book club review and sign up today. Otherwise, come and find me anytime on Instagram at book club review podcast or check out our website, thebookclubreview.co.uk. But for now, thanks for listening and happy book clubbing.