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The Hatchards Podcast

The Hatchards Podcast

By: Ryan Edgington and Matt Hennessey
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 The Hatchards Podcast is a conversation show about books brought to you by England’s oldest bookshop. Featuring interviews with some of our favourite authors, bookish waffle, and the occasional glass of wine. Hosted by Ryan Edgington and Matt Hennessey.Hatchards Art Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Olivia Laing on The Silver Book: Italy, Illusion, and Intransigence

    Olivia Laing on The Silver Book: Italy, Illusion, and Intransigence
    Nov 4 2025
    On this episode, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Olivia Laing to discuss their extraordinary new novel, The Silver Book, which has been selected as a Hatchards Book of the Month for November.
    Set amid the turbulence of Italy’s Years of Lead, the novel is full of rich and deliberate contradictions: it’s a love story coloured by political extremism; a journey through Rome’s legendary film studio, Cinecittà, that sidesteps glamour in favour of the artisans and craftspeople who brought cinematic illusions to life. At its heart is a character who recalls Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley, though driven more by naïveté than malice.
    Olivia spoke with us about the deep immersion in Italian history and culture that informed their writing, and about the figures of Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini — both major characters in the novel — whose contrasting creative visions shaped modern Italian art and cinema. They also reflected on how Italy’s fraught political history continues to resonate today, offering unexpected parallels with contemporary Britain.
    Hosted by Ryan Edgington and Matt Hennessey.
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    53 mins
  • Lyse Doucet on The Finest Hotel in Kabul: Freedom and Frontline Journalism

    Lyse Doucet on The Finest Hotel in Kabul: Freedom and Frontline Journalism
    Sep 23 2025
    On this episode, we had the privilege of sitting down with Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, to discuss her powerful new book The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan.
    Now nominated for the Baillie Gifford Prize, this deeply personal work reflects Lyse’s decades of reporting on Afghanistan from the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, during which she forged lasting connections with both the hotel’s staff and its guests. These relationships have shaped her unique perspective on the country’s turbulent history.
    Lyse spoke with us about her remarkable career reporting from the frontlines, as well as her reflections on writing, the changing media landscape, and the responsibilities and challenges that come with international journalism. She also offered her perspective on how Afghanistan is too often seen only through the lens of conflict, and why it is important to recognise the country’s rich cultural heritage alongside its history of war.
    Hosted by Ryan Edgington and Olivia Robinson.
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    43 mins
  • Roger Lewis on The Life and Death of Peter Sellers: Goons, Ghosts, and Destructive Genius

    Roger Lewis on The Life and Death of Peter Sellers: Goons, Ghosts, and Destructive Genius
    Aug 19 2025
    On this episode, we welcome back Roger Lewis, whose deeply researched and gleefully idiosyncratic biographies of British performing artists have come to constitute a genre all their own.
    Our subject is the book that began it all: his classic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, newly reissued in a hardback edition with a foreword by Steve Coogan. In its pages, Lewis makes the case that Sellers was, alongside Olivier, perhaps the finest British actor of the twentieth century — even as he remained one of the most impossible.
    In our conversation, he conjures Sellers as a man without a core, a figure of astonishing mimicry in whom there was no enduring sense of self. From The Goon Show to The Ladykillers, from The Pink Panther to Dr. Strangelove and Being There, the magnificence of the performances remains undeniable. But so, too, is the destruction he left in his wake.

    Hosted by Ryan Edgington.
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    41 mins
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