Book Shambles

On today's episode Robin is joined by comedian Rachel Parris to talk about her new, and first, book, Advice from Strangers. She chats with Robin about writing the book, the pressure of remembering not everything has to be funny, Jane Austen, the difficulties of writing satire right now and the book on the music she really wants to write next. Hear an extended version, and get lots of other goodies bby subscribing to our Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

This week Robin is joined by artist and author Lauren John Joseph to talk about their new novel, At Certain Points We Touch. They chat about the book, literary influences and places that inspire creativity, particularly in their home town of Liverpool. To hear and extended version, subscribe at patreon.com/bookshambles

Tonight the ever brilliant Inside No. 9 returns to our screens for series 7 and so it is that Reece Shearsmith returns to Book Shambles! He joins Robin to talk about the new series, favourite episodes, great horror short stories and more. They're also joined by horror writer and historian Johnny Mains who, together with Robin, will be editing the third volume of Dead Funny, horror stories by comedians, of which Reece will be contributing...

Our guest today is the author of one of the most lauded books of 2021, the superb Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. One of the awards it garnered last year was the highly prestigious Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and one of the judges on the panel last year was our own Dr Helen Czerski, so this week we've handed over the solo reigns of the podcast to Helen...

Hayley Campbell is a writer and broadcaster you may best know for his book The Art of Neil Gaiman. Her latest book, All the Living and the Dead, looks at our relationship with death, and the people for whom death is their life. She joins Robin to talk about her fascination with death, seeing her first dead body, embalming and Jeremy Bentham's head. Extended version as ever for Patreon subscribers at patreon.com/bookshambles

Veronica O'Keane is a Professor of Psychiatry and this week she joins Robin and Helen Czerski to talk about her book The Rag and Bone Shop which deals with her thirty year investigation into memory. One of the exciting things about Veronica's book, for Book Shambles fans, is how her book takes us on a journey through writers from Beckett to Yeats and beyond as she uncovers the mysteries of how our memories, and false memories, work. To hear and extended episode subscribe at patreon...

On today's episode Robin is joined by author and poet Kei Miller to talk about his new collection of essays, Things I Have Withheld. They chat about the fear of writing such an honest book, how criticism and expectations of self differs from country to country, favourite Jamaican poets and much more. Extended episode, and other goodies, available for Patreon subscribers. Sign up at patreon.com/bookshambles

You've probably encountered online what is often labeled 'Abandoned Places Porn'. Artistic photography of disused theme parks, factories and that sort of thing. Our guest on today's show is the author of widely acclaimed, and Baillie Gifford Prize shortlisted book, Islands of Abandonment, an in depth exploration into the places where nature is flourishing after humans have left. She talks to Robin about the book, the myths around these sorts of places, science fiction, Chernobyl and much more...

On this week's show we have someone who was one of the writers, and performers, of the Cosmic Shambles and Book Shambles theme music. Oh, and he's also one of the world's leading experts on disgust and emotions and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University. And now Dr Richard Firth-Godbehere's first book has just been published, A Human History of Emotion...

This week's episode was recorded in January live at The Slapstick Festival in Bristol. Armando Iannucci, co-creator of The Thick Of It, Veep, Alan Partridge and so many other comedy icons, joins Robin to talk about the state of satire in 2022. Armando's latest book is Pandemonium : Some verses on the Current Predicament, an epic mock-heroic poem, written in response to the pandemic, but they don't really get round to that what with everything else going on...