Books Podcast

01/12/2025

Peter Doggett calls The Beach Boys the most dysfunctional group of musicians ever to make it big in the music industry, and his wonderful new book Surf's Up! is a rollicking affirmation of this.
Find the my interview with him at

“Human brains were not built for comfortable lives”, writes Nicholas Wright. Which rather raises the question, what were they built for? Well, among other things, “Every human brain is built to win – or at least survive a fight.”

11/11/2025

New interview posted at www.bookspodcast.com
This is a fascinating conversation with Dr Nicholas Wright about his new book, Warhead - how the brain shapes war and war shapes the brain, and it contains one of the few instances you will ever hear of somebody using the word 'chiasmus' in conversation.

“Human brains were not built for comfortable lives”, writes Nicholas Wright. Which rather raises the question, what were they built for? Well, among other things, “Every human brain is built to win – or at least survive a fight.”

11/10/2025

A new interview with author Mark Blake was just released on The Books Podcast, which focuses on conversations with authors. Mark recently published Pink Floyd Shine On: The Definitive Oral History, which is at the forefront of the discussion. The … Continue reading →

10/10/2025

Pink Floyd! New interview at www.bookspodcast.com with Mark Blake about his definitive oral history of the Floyd. Very interesting.

Infectious diseases caused by bacteria have killed well over half of all humans who have ever lived on Earth. Historically, bacterial infections have started major pandemics such as the bubonic plague, which is estimated to have killed 50-60 per cent of the population of Europe during the Black Deat...

26/07/2025

A new interview at www.bookspodcast.com
So Very Small - by Thomas Levenson. A fascinating and entertaining account of the development of germ theory. More than half of all the people who ever lived were killed by infection. But that's not your problem any more. Over 200 years a colourful cast of characters responded to epidemics and catastrophes and eventually found effective responses. It's actually a roller-coaster of a read.

Nitrous Oxide made “a picaresque journey from laboratory to lecture hall, variety palace to dentist’s chair.” A substance that does not exist in nature, it fairly blew the minds of the radical scientific community in the late 18th Century when it was isolated and synthesised. Some of them coul...

09/07/2025

We've been sanctioned by YouTube! We're rather proud, to be honest. A terrific interview about the history of pioneering chemists turns out to be controversial! It's a terrific interview, by the way - well worth a listen.

05/07/2025

We are really pleased with a terrific new interview at www.bookspodcast.com
We talk to Mike Jay about his fascinating new book, Free Radicals, which notionally tells the history of the discovery of nitrous oxide, but takes in a wonderful panorama of the scientific and political landscape of the late Eighteenth Century. I loved it.

When a book is turned into a film or, in this case, a comic into a television series, there are usually disagreements about which is better, ranging from polite opinions to open cultural warfare. Resident Alien seems to have bridged the gap, or survived the transformation, pretty well: now both a su...

18/06/2025

New interview at www.bookspodcast.com
Comics legend Peter Hogan talks about his Resident Alien series, which as you probably know was turned into a successful TV show with Alan Tudyk.

When a book is turned into a film or, in this case, a comic into a television series, there are usually disagreements about which is better, ranging from polite opinions to open cultural warfare. Resident Alien seems to have bridged the gap, or survived the transformation, pretty well: now both a su...

18/06/2025

29/05/2025

I know what you're thinking - Economic History. Not really my thing, Timbo. But trust me - it's a lot more lively than you think.
From Gilded Ages (we're in the second one right now) to the repeated syndrome of Too Big To Fail corporations requiring state bailouts, Capitalism really should, as Marx said, have created the seeds of its own destruction.
There have to be reasons why Capitalism rumbles on despite its tendency to immiserate whole populations and despoil the planet. This book is one way to explore them.

05/05/2025

Back to fiction for the new Books Podcast interview - A Beautiful Way To Die, by Eleni Kyriacou. Glamour and scandal and death in 1950's Hollywood. Big question - is it worse to be taken advantage of by Harvey Weinstein than by a good-looking movie star?

A Beautiful Way To Die is a romp of ambition and decadence in which everyone has an agenda and dark secrets. It weaves its magic through carefully-embedded real-life locations and oblique references to real-world Hollywood scandals, telling a lively tale of a dazzling movie star couple, a wannabe st...

27/03/2025

Just doing my research for the next subject of The Books Podcast, this riveting history of Dr Who, by John Higgs. Really looking forward to it.