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The Radio 2 Book Club

The Radio 2 Book Club

By: BBC Radio 2
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About this listen

The Radio 2 Book club celebrates the best in new fiction and recommends great reads. Sara will be interviewing top authors about their latest novels, and she’ll be catching up with librarians and reading groups from across the UK. Whether you’re after a summer blockbuster, a twist-filled thriller, or want to curl up with a heart-warming love story, Sara has you covered!

(C) BBC 2025
Art Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • Dawn O'Porter (recorded at Radio 2 In The Park)
    Sep 7 2025

    Broadcaster and bestselling author, Dawn O'Porter, joins Sara for a special edition of The Radio 2 Book Club.

    Recorded live in Hylands Park, Chelmsford (at Radio 2 In The Park), Dawn and Sara chat about her books and writing, in front of an intimate audience of bookworms.

    Dawn also gives us her Top Five Reads Of The Year so far, and answers some questions about her writing process from our audience.

    Remember you can get in touch with us anytime to tell us about what you're reading, about your own book group - or - to be one of our listener reviewers! The email address is: radio2bookclub@bbc.co.uk

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    32 mins
  • 'The Two Roberts' by Damian Barr
    Sep 2 2025

    Sara welcomes author and broadcaster Damian Barr to the Book Club, to chat about his new novel 'The Two Roberts'.

    They discuss how he first discovered the real-life characters (artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun) and what drew him to them.

    He was actually writing something else but had to stop and turn his attention to their story, because he was so taken with the love between them and how brave they both were.

    There's a bit of ceramics chat (Damian reveals that his husband has a second love - his kiln!) and there's a bit of hazy recollection of them both being in 'Soho in the 90s' too.

    Damian also gives us a couple of cracking book recommendations - and - we hear a little clip from the audiobook of The Two Roberts as well.

    Here's a little more about the book:

    Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he's off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with loose dark curls - and never leave his side.

    Together they will spend every penny and every minute devouring Glasgow - its botanical gardens, the Barras market, a whole hidden city - all the while loving each other behind closed doors. With the world on the brink of war, their unrivalled talent will take them to Paris, Rome, London. They will become stars as the bombs fall, hosting wild parties with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart. But the brightest stars burn fastest.

    Stunningly reimagined, The Two Roberts is a profoundly moving story of devotion and obsession, art and class. It is a love letter to MacBryde and Colquhoun, the almost-forgotten artists who tried to change the way the world sees - and paid a devastating price.

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    20 mins
  • 'Katabasis' by R.F. Kuang
    Aug 26 2025

    Sara welcomes the international bestselling author of 'Yellowface' - R.F. Kuang -to the Radio 2 Book Club.

    Her latest novel, 'Katabasis', sees Rebecca return to her fantasy roots - and tell an unexpected love story, set in hell.

    They chat about her inspirations for this incredible story, her research - and how her Philosopher husband came in handy. There's also a guest star appearance from a cat as well!

    Here's a little more about 'Katabasis'

    Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld.

    Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick. But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.

    But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.

    That’s if they can agree on anything.

    Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?

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    16 mins
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