The BBC Radio 2 Book Club returns!
Sara Cox – who recently celebrated 25 years on BBC Radio – is the new host of the Radio 2 Book Club, which returned to Radio 2 on Tuesday 8 October. As well as coverage on Sara’s show, and other shows on Radio 2, there will be a weekly podcast on BBC Sounds.
The Radio 2 Book Club’s weekly podcast will shine a light on some of the best new fiction being published in the UK, across all genres. The books are chosen with help from library staff and other reading experts from across the UK to ensure a fair and unbiased selection process.
As it always has done, the Radio 2 Book Club will champion new voices as well as featuring some of the most popular authors writing today, with a range of novels that listeners will love. Sara will also get an insight into the craft and writing process of the chosen authors and hear from listeners about what they have been reading and enjoying too. She will tease each new weekly episode of the podcast on her teatime show.
We’re delighted to share the six books that will be featured this season on the Radio 2 Book Club with Sara Cox:
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school. This weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to their son Giles’ envy and violence.
As their lives unfold over the next half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically: Dave, a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.
Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security.
Reader comments
“This is a remarkable book”
“Beautifully and honestly written”
“Funny, sad, I loved it”
The Book of Witching by CJ Cooke
Four hundred years separate them.
One book binds them.
Glasgow 2024: Clem waits by her daughter’s hospital bed. Erin was found on an idyllic beach in Fynhallow Bay, Orkney with catastrophic burns and only one memory: her name is Nyx.
But how did she get these burns? And how did her boyfriend end up burned alive?
Orkney 1594: accused of witchcraft, Alison Balfour awaits trial. The punishment? To be burned alive.
Separated by four hundred years but bound by the Book of Witching, two women stand imperilled. Can they unlock a centuries-old mystery? And will Fynhallow Bay give up its secrets before someone else dies?
Reader comments
“A dark and compelling time slip novel”
“Spooky…this book is the perfect accompaniment to a crisp autumn evening”
“Captivating throughout, well-researched with compelling storytelling”
The Glass Girl by Kathleen Glasgow
Bella is at breaking point. Everyone in her life needs something from her, and there’s only one thing that dulls the pain.
Alcohol smooths the sharp edges and makes it all so much easier. When Bella drinks, she doesn’t feel heartbroken over her ex. Or caught in the middle of her parents’ divorce. Or overcome with grief for her grandmother.
But one night changes everything. When she awakes in hospital with no memory of what happened, it’s time to face reality. And for Bella, that means rehab and the bumpy road to recovery.
Reader comments
“A realistic and excellent YA novel that has broad appeal”
“Fabulous for teens and adults alike with plenty to discuss”
“A deeply compassionate and moving book”
Playground by Richard Powers
Rafi and Todd are two polar opposites at an elite high school where they bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game. It sets them up for life: Rafi will get lost in literature, while Todd’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.
Elsewhere, Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs; Ina Aroita grows up in naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home.
All of these people meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. As the seasteaders close in, how will Evie play the ever-unfolding oceanic game? Will Ina engage in acts of destruction? Todd and Rafi, now estranged, still find themselves in competition: Todd unravels while working on an idea to redraw the boundaries of human immortality, while Rafi and the residents must decide if they will greenlight the new project on their shores and change their home forever.
Set in the world’s largest ocean, Playground explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize and interweaves profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
Reader comments
“A far reaching novel that was superb”
“A book with a powerful message that really made me think about my relationship to the natural world”
“I found myself immersed in this book so quickly, I loved it and found it very hard to put down”
Time of the Child by Niall Williams
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.
His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.
But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.
Reader comments
“A novel to savour and to read patiently…Faith, family and community are all explored in compelling detail”
“A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances”
“A beautifully written, tender and heartwarming tale”
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.
Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming ‘lion women.’
But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.
Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.
Reader comments
“This was a really absorbing and moving read”
“It was rewarding and enjoyable, but also educative and informative”
“A truly compelling story of female friendship, culture, love and heartbreak”
For all the latest Book Club content, including interviews with the authors, visit BBC Sounds. You can even subscribe, to make sure you never miss an episode.
Planning to buy any of these books for your book club? Buy books from Hive or from Bookshop.org and support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no extra cost to you.
Over the coming weeks we will be sharing even more Book Club picks, including some great reads you might have missed over the summer. Keep visiting our News page as well as social media to find out more. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
