הפודקאסטים הטובים ביותר ב-Short Book Discussions (2025)

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Bitesize episode - A Review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck 11:19

8d ago11:19

11:19

A reflective exploration of Intermezzo and Kairos - the pause that gives the meaning and the moment that matters. In this solo episode, Christina shares insights on how timing and intervals shape our experiences.

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Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver 27:55

2M ago27:55

27:55

Christina sit downs with Ang for a candid conversation about what it means to live on the margins - socially, physically, and politically. From the realities of housing insecurity to the quiet resilience of those navigating systems not build for them, this dialogue blands lived experience with sharp insight and gentle wit.…

1
Bitesize Episode: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker 10:00

3M ago10:00

10:00

The non~negotiable superpower! This book, the first of its kind written by a scientific expert, Professor Matthew Walker explores twenty years of cutting-edge research to solve the mystery of why sleep matters. Looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why We Sleep delves in to everything from what really h…

1
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden 32:34

5M ago32:34

32:34

Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025 Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for July 2025 An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge - for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan's Atonement. It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a…

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The Bitesize Book Review - The Book Club by CJ Cooper 7:45

6M ago7:45

7:45

Can you trust the woman next door? The book club was her idea, of course - Alice's. It was her way into our group. A chance to get close. I knew from the day she arrived that she couldn't be trusted. And I was right. Because Alice didn't come to the village for peace and quiet. She came for revenge. Absolutely love addictive psychological thrillers…

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The Bitesize Book Review: Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst 14:24

7M ago14:24

14:24

Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maurice and Maralyn plan their escape: sell the house, build a boat, set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway around the world, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Alone on a tiny raft, their love is put to the test. This is a book about human connecti…

1
Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan 38:26

8M ago38:26

38:26

Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month for June 2021 Shortlisted for the Portico Prize 2022 Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend who defines your life. In the summer of 1986, James and Tully ignite a friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. With school over, they rush towards a magical weekend of youthful excess in Manchester playe…

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The Bitesize Book Review: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman 10:49

9M ago10:49

10:49

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infe…

1
Go As A River by Shelley Read 32:17

10M ago32:17

32:17

When a moment changes everything, how do you live the rest of your life? 1940s Colorado: Teenage Victoria Nash is the only woman in a family of troubled men. When she meets Wilson Moon, a young drifter with a mysterious past, on a street corner, their connection is immediate. And dangerous. But then tragedy strikes, and Victoria is forced to leave …

1
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy 32:20

11M ago32:20

32:20

an affair between a young Catholic woman and a married Protestant barrister drives this brilliant novel set in 1975 Belfast.

1
Christopher Bland Prize winner The Salt Path by Raynor Winn 27:42

11M ago27:42

27:42

The Salt Path is a 2024 British biographical drama film directed by Marianne Elliott based on the book of the same name and one read in book club a few years ago. We revisit it here in our podcast. The book was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award 2018 and won the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize.Just days before Raynor lear…

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Gloucester Book Club's Top 3 Books of 2024 10:26

11M ago10:26

10:26

This episode by host, Christina Young, talks about the top 3 books Gloucester Book Club read together in 2024, as voted for by book club members. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng In Memorian by Alice Winn

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In Memoriam by Alice Winn 29:33

12M ago29:33

29:33

Waterstones Novel of the Year 2023 A gripping, heart-shattering love story between two soldiers in the First World War. It's 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they're too young to enlist, an…

1
Any Human Heart by William Boyd 31:02

1y ago31:02

31:02

Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, but Logan Mountstuart's - lived from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century - contains more than its fair share of both. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war and as an art-dealer in '…

1
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson 28:04

1y ago28:04

28:04

The Morrison siblings have been haunted by tragedy since the sudden death of their parents in an accident when they were young. Kate found an escape from the legacy of their dark past in her passion for the natural world. Now a zoologist far away from the small farming community where she grew up, she thinks she's outgrown her three brothers, who w…

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Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng 30:33

1y ago30:33

30:33

Our Missing Hearts is the third novel by the American author Celeste Ng. It was published in 2022 by Penguin Press. The novel follows Noah Gardner (known as Bird) on a bus trip from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lives with his father, to New York City in search for his mother. The novel takes place in a dystopian future under PACT (The Preserv…

1
A Chat with Rachel Sargeant author of the Gloucestershire Crime Series 36:01

1+ y ago36:01

36:01

Rachel Sargeant is the author of The Roommates, The Good Teacher, and The Perfect Neighbours. She also writes the Gloucestershire Crime Series, which includes Her Deadly Friend and Her Charming Man. She won Writing Magazine’s Crime Short Story competition and has been shortlisted in various competitions including the Bristol Short Story Prize. Her …

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Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili 30:14

1+ y ago30:14

30:14

Shortlisted for the Wilbur & Niso Smith Adventure Prize for Fiction - could this be the winner? An extraordinary tale of family, scarifice and our never-ceasing battle with the past, Vardiashvili's mesmerising and unique novel about a boy looking for his father who's returned to his native Georgia for the first time since the war blends gripping my…

1
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang 34:01

1+ y ago34:01

34:01

Athena Liu is a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. But when June just happens to witness Athena die in a freak accident, she realises now is her chance to find fame.So what if that means stealing her friend’s work? So what if that means creating a new, racially ambiguous identity? So what if a social media scandal is about to blow …

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Stolen Focus by Johann Hari 39:32

1+ y ago39:32

39:32

Is your ability to focus and pay attention in free fall? You are not alone. The average office worker now focuses on any one task for just three minutes. But it’s not your fault. Your attention didn’t collapse. It has been stolen. Internationally bestselling author Johann Hari shows twelve deep factors harming our focus. Once we understand them, to…

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The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres 36:45

1+ y ago36:45

36:45

In the brief golden years of King Edward VII's reign, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?…

1
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande 35:06

1+ y ago35:06

35:06

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is a 2014 non-fiction book by American surgeon Atul Gawande. The book addresses end-of-life care, hospice care, and also contains Gawande's reflections and personal stories. He suggests that medical care should focus on well-being rather than survival.…

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The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak 34:26

1+ y ago34:26

34:26

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled.Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and…

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The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 31:29

2y ago31:29

31:29

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at las…

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The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell 34:58

2y ago34:58

34:58

Shortlisted for The British Book Awards 2023 Fiction Book of the Year. ‘O'Farrell paints as evocative a picture of Renaissance Italy as she did Shakespearean England in the former Waterstones Book of the Year Hamnet, as Cosimo de' Medici's third daughter learns to navigate an opaque Florentine court and an enigmatic new husband’ ~ Waterstones…

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Heaven My Home by Attica Locke 41:35

2y ago41:35

41:35

The thrilling follow-up to the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird: Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is on the hunt for a boy who's gone missing - but it's the boy's family of white supremacists who are his real target9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor jus…

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 26:30

2y ago26:30

26:30

It is the tale, simply told, of one ordinary middle-aged man - Bill Furlong - who in December 1985, in a small Irish town, slowly grasps the enormity of the local convent's heartless treatment of unmarried mothers and their babies (one instance of what will soon be exposed as the scandal of the Magdalene laundries).…

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Top 4 books from 2023 9:33

2y ago9:33

9:33

Gloucester Book Club’s top 3 books read and discussed in 2023 and voted for by members of book club

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‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Kate Nivison 10:21

2y ago10:21

10:21

From Stories For Christmas and the festive season - British Library

1
Ticket for a Carol Concert by Audrey Burton 13:34

2y ago13:34

13:34

Taken from Stories for Christmas and the festive season - British Library Women Writers

1
French Braid by Anne Tyler 34:56

2y ago34:56

34:56

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Redhead by the Side of the Road returns with a luminous new novel that paints a joyous and painfully truthful portrait of family life ~ Waterstones

1
A Visitor by Holly Crawford from Spooky Ambiguous 13:03

2y ago13:03

13:03

The second episode of our Halloween series of short stories from Spooky Ambiguous, ghost stories and poetry fangs and fairy tales, published by Crumps Barn Studios. Suitable for children.

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Prohibido El Paso by Patrick Booth - a short story for Halloween 🎃👻💀 18:32

2y ago18:32

18:32

Taken from Spooky Ambiguous - an intriguing collection of short stories and poetry where nothing and no-one is as they seem. With permission from Crumps Barn Studio in The Cotswolds

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The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles 31:12

2y ago31:12

31:12

When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved Library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal.…

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The Five - Hallie Rubenhold. How do I know if this book is for me - just listen in! 27:45

2+ y ago27:45

27:45

“A passionate condemnation of the misogyny Jack the Ripper's victims have been held in for over a century, The Five tells an engrossing group biography of Victorian womanhood, blighted by poverty and powerless against casual and constant abuse” ~ Waterstones

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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason 36:21

2+ y ago36:21

36:21

“Tackling the issue of long-term mental illness with wit and candour, Mason’s remarkable novel takes a rounded, empathetic look at the condition through the experiences of a middle-aged woman who has struggled to find contentment in her adult life” ~ Waterstones

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Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 38:23

2+ y ago38:23

38:23

But there she was Sadie Green, in the flesh. And to see her almost made him want to cry. It was as if she were a mathematical proof that had eluded him for many years, but all at once, with fresh, well-rested eyes, the proof had a completely obvious solution. There’s Sadie, he thought. Yes. ‘A brilliant story about life’s most challenging puzzles: …

1
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 34:42

2+ y ago34:42

34:42

Waterstones book of 2022, British Book Awards author of 2023, debut novelist Bonnie Garmus brings us Lessons in Chemistry. “smart,funny, joyous and powerful featuring an unconventional female scientist with a quiet game plan to change the world”. Listen in to our discussion!

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Stoner by John Williams 40:41

2+ y ago40:41

40:41

John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world. In this episode you’ll hear Christina, Tony and James sharing th…

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Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie 32:55

3y ago32:55

32:55

A dazzling new novel of friendship, identity and the unknowability of other people – from the international bestselling author of Home Fire, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.This year, 1988, anything seems possible for the girls; and for Pakistan, emerging from the darkness of dictatorship into a bright future under another young woman, Bena…

1
Flamingo by Rachel Elliott 34:01

3y ago34:01

34:01

A brilliantly moving story of the cost of secrets and the power of hope, Flamingo revolves around two families, an unforgettable summer they spend together and a re-encounter decades later that changes everything. Waterstones

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Gloucester Book Club’s top 3 novels of 2022 9:13

3y ago9:13

9:13

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, Still Life by Sarah Winman, A Town Solace called Solace by Mary Lawson

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Lessons by Ian McEwan 29:58

3y ago29:58

29:58

“In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, an English schoolboy arrives unannounced at his piano teacher’s house. He stands on her doorstep in his drainpipe trousers and sharp-toed winklepickers, twitchy with eroticised terror. The boy, Roland Baines, is 14; his teacher, Miss Cornell, is 25. Roland fears that the world is about to…

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Small Mercies - a Christmas short story by Kate Atkinson 19:23

3y ago19:23

19:23

A festive tale from ‘Festive Spirits’ written by Kate Atkinson 2019. Read by Christina Young

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The Girl who Killed Santa Claus by Val McDermid. Narrated by Christina Young 13:06

3y ago13:06

13:06

A short story taken from a chilling collection of short stories ‘Christmas is Murder’ published by Sphere in 2020

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A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe 32:56

3y ago32:56

32:56

Nineteen-year-old William’s decision to volunteer at the tragic scene of the 1966 Aberfan landslide transforms his life forever in this moving story about sacrifice and compassion.

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A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale 32:33

3y ago32:33

32:33

A moving and intensely felt examination of the lengths to which we will go to seek protection and security in others. Returning to haunted Cornish landscapes familiar from other Gale novels, it is the story of individuals in search of a family.

1
Mirror Mirror by Michael Bartlett read by Christina Young 20:44

3y ago20:44

20:44

A spooky short story taken from a wonderful collection of gothic fairy tales and poetry, where nothing and no one is as they seem…..

1
For Halloween 🎃🧛Blood Moon by Amaris Chase 7:24

3y ago7:24

7:24

A short story for Halloween from Spooky Ambiguous - a collection of ghost stories and poetry, fangs and fairy tales published by Crumps Barn Studio in the Cotswolds and read by Christina Young

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In conversation with Christine Jordan, author of her debut crime novel ‘Misper’ 29:28

3y ago29:28

29:28

Ten years ago, Sophie Shaw vanished. Kat, a technician who works in a DNA testing lab, is still haunted by the unsolved disappearance, and when she notices a suspicious tweet about the case online, she calls in a tip. A few weeks later she learns that a man is being questioned, and drunkenly sends out a tweet of her own, boasting about her role in …

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