Books & Chat: Short Book Reviews & Literary Discussions
- Episódios
- 81
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- mensal
- Último episódio
- 8 nov 2026
Sobre o podcast
Thoughtful chats for readers who love good stories. Books & Chat from Gloucester Book Club brings you 10‑minute reviews and personal reflections, plus 30‑minute book club conversations with members and local authors. Follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and never miss a chapter.
Episódios 81
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun: RevisitedFirst released in December 2021, this episode is back in time for the new film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. Klara is an Artificial Friend, watching the world …
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Klara and the Sun: Revisited
First released in December 2021, this episode is back in time for the new film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. Klara is an Artificial Friend, watching the world from a shop window and then from inside a family's home, learning what it means to love and be loved. Whether you've read the novel or are just curious before seeing the film, join us as we talk about its quiet, haunting questions about devotion, loneliness and what makes us human. Have you seen the film yet? Tell us how it compares to the book.
Books & Chat Bitesize: What we leave behind - Dream State & The Story of a Heart
Can't decide what to read next? In this episode of Books & Chat, Christina dives into two recent Gloucester Book Club picks:Dream State by Eric Puchner - a multi-generational literary novel about flawed people …
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Can't decide what to read next? In this episode of Books & Chat, Christina dives into two recent Gloucester Book Club picks:
Dream State by Eric Puchner - a multi-generational literary novel about flawed people, messy choices, and changing times.
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke - The Women's Prize-winning non-fiction account of grief, hope, and life-saving generosity.
Tune in to get a quick summary, author background, and our club's final take on both books!
Bitesize episode: Culpability by Bruce Holsinger & Ripeness by Sarah Moss
Need a quick book recommendation? In this mini-episode, I’m breaking down Bruce Holsinger’s Culpability alongside Sarah Moss’s Ripeness. Both books dig deep into what happens when secrets unravel and …
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Need a quick book recommendation? In this mini-episode, I’m breaking down Bruce Holsinger’s Culpability alongside Sarah Moss’s Ripeness. Both books dig deep into what happens when secrets unravel and consequences catch up to us - but in completely different ways. Tune in for a quick bite of book talk to add to your reading list!
Three Days in June - Anne Tyler & The Party - Tessa Hadley
Two Novellas, two very different worldsIn this episode, Christina is joined by Ang to discuss two beautifully written novellas that were chosen for the book club's recent read.Both books unfold over just three …
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Two Novellas, two very different worlds
In this episode, Christina is joined by Ang to discuss two beautifully written novellas that were chosen for the book club's recent read.
Both books unfold over just three days, but they take readers in very different directions. Happy listening!
Bitesize episode - Broken Country - Clare Leslie Hall
Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth's brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn't realise …
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Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth's brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn't realise that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives.
Bitesize episode - Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that …
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Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. This happened to me.'
When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, abandoned, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival.
Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness first-hand an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, reconnecting with our childhood enthusiasm for wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most beautiful experiences, inspiring the most hope, arise when we least expect them.
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
Christina and her guest Angela discuss Andrew Miller's The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize - a spare, wintry novel about endurance, loyalty, and the quiet moral choices people make when the …
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Christina and her guest Angela discuss Andrew Miller's The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize - a spare, wintry novel about endurance, loyalty, and the quiet moral choices people make when the world narrows. A calm, thoughtful conversation about a book that lingers.
Bitesize: Top 3 Books of 2025
A concise Books and Chat Bitesize episode exploring the Gloucester Book Club’s Top Three Books of 2025. A reflective look at the stories, themes, and authors that shaped our reading year.About the : Books & …
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A concise Books and Chat Bitesize episode exploring the Gloucester Book Club’s Top Three Books of 2025. A reflective look at the stories, themes, and authors that shaped our reading year.
About the : Books & Chat is a cosy Gloucester Book Club podcast with short reviews and thoughtful conversations for readers who love good stories.
Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet has stayed with me ever since I first read it — a story so tender, so exquisitely imagined, it felt like it settled into my bones. With the new film adaptation about to arrive, it felt …
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Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet has stayed with me ever since I first read it — a story so tender, so exquisitely imagined, it felt like it settled into my bones. With the new film adaptation about to arrive, it felt like the right moment to bring back this episode I recorded five years ago, when the book had just swept through my life and my book club.
In this short revisit, we talk about the beauty of O’Farrell’s writing, the quiet power of Agnes, and the way love and loss echo through a family. If you’re returning to the story ahead of the film, or discovering it for the first time, I hope this episode offers a gentle way back into that world.
Bitesize episode - A Review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
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.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
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 …
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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.
Bitesize Episode: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
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 …
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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 happens during REM sleep to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
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 …
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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 solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother's country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep - as a guest, there to stay for the season…
In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.
The Bitesize Book Review - The Book Club by CJ Cooper
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 …
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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 like THOSE PEOPLE, THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR and THE NEIGHBOUR? Then you will be hooked by this edge-of-your-seat novel about the dark secrets that the neighbours of a Cotswolds village are hiding.
The Bitesize Book Review: Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst
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 …
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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 connection and the human condition; about how we survive – not just at sea, but in life.
Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan
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 …
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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 played out against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded. And there a vow is made: to go at life differently.
Thirty years on, the phone rings. Tully has news.
The Bitesize Book Review: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman
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 …
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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, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.'
So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.
For fans of Nora Ephron and Sorrow & Bliss, We All Want Impossible Things is a deeply moving, jubilant celebration of life and friendship at its imperfect, radiant, and irreverent best.
Go As A River by Shelley Read
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 …
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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 her home and face a decision that will change her life forever.
Loved deeply by readers, this is the epic coming-of-age adventure of Victoria Nash, determined to save her family’s generational peach farm from destruction, as she falls in love, faces devastating tragedy, and finally faces what she must do to survive.Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
an affair between a young Catholic woman and a married Protestant barrister drives this brilliant novel set in 1975 Belfast.
Christopher Bland Prize winner The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
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 …
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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 learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the South West Coastal Path.
Gloucester Book Club’s Top 3 Books of 2024
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 …
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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
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
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 …
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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, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been. When Gaunt's German mother asks him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood.
The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him, spurred on by his love of Greek heroes and romantic poetry. Before long, their classmates have followed suit. Once in the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
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 …
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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 '60s New York, Logan mixes with the movers and shakers of his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness.
Here, then, is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart.
'Astonishing, touching, extremely funny. A brilliant evocation of a past era and an immensely readable story' - Sunday Telegraph
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
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 …
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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 were once her entire world.
But Kate can't seem to escape her childhood or lighten the weight of their mutual past.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
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 …
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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 Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act)
A Chat with Rachel Sargeant author of the Gloucestershire Crime Series
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 …
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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 stories have appeared in My Weekly and the Saucy Shorts series by Accent Press.
She is a graduate of Aberystwyth University and holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. She provides bespoke critiques for Henshaw Press short story competition entrants and is a judge in the quarterly competitions. After many years in Germany, she now lives in Gloucestershire with her family. Her hobbies are visiting country houses and coffee shops, and going to the theatre.
Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili
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 …
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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 mystery with questions about how we remember and why we forget.
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
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 …
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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 her cover?As her lies mount up and threaten her stolen success, how far will June go to keep what she thinks she deserves…
This is one hell of a story. It’s just not hers to tell.
Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
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 …
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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, together, we can take back our minds.The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres
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 …
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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?
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