The Book Club Review

Valentine’s-ish Literary Romance: Lucas Oakley on Nearly Departed, Boys Book Club & love stories that stay with you long after reading
Join Kate and Lucas Oakeley for this Valentine's-ish episode of The Book Club Review, recorded at Housmans Bookshop in King's Cross. We're exploring literary fiction where love takes centre stage, but the reward is complexity rather than a guaranteed happy ending.
Nearly Departed manages to combine the enjoyable tropes of Rom Com with the thoughtful exploration through writing that we associate with literary fiction. We explore how Lucas’s real-life experiences—witnessing a fatal cycling accident and his father's first wife dying young—shaped the book's exploration of love, loss, and second chances, and the art of balancing humour with heartbreak while playing with rom-com tropes.
Of course, we’ve got plenty of recommendations for love stories with emotional depth, including Lily King's Writers & Lovers, Andrew Kaufman's All My Friends Are Superheroes, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, David Nicholls' Sweet Sorrow, Douglas Stuart's John of John, and hot-book-of-the-moment Wuthering Heights.
We’re also discussing Boys Book Club, the organization Lucas has co-founded to encourage men to read and talk about books. What makes a great book club pick for an all-male book club? We’re going to be finding out.
We’ve even got Valentine's recipe – rigatoni with a long-simmered ‘Sunday sauce’ – and a couple of cocktail ideas.
All in all, the perfect ingredients for a literary Valentine’s weekend.
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Booklist
You can find all the titles mentioned in this episode in the Book Club Review bookshop on bookshop.org
Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley
 Heart The Lover by Lily King
All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman
Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
John of John by Douglas Stuart
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Comfort MOB: Food that Makes You Feel Good
Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser
All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger
Links
Follow Lucas on Instagram and Tik Tok @lucasoakeley, and you can find out all the details for the Boy’s Book Club at theboysbookclub.co.uk
Housmans bookshop, the longest continuous-running radical bookshop in Britain, established in 1945 and based in London’s Kings Cross since 1959

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What makes a bestseller? Is it the quality of the writing, or just the right book at the right time? This week Kate is joined by co-host Laura Potter and returning guest Phil Chaffee to find out.
Between us we've tackled six of the biggest bestsellers out there – Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets, Freida McFadden's The Housemaid, Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, Matt Dinnerman's Dungeon Crawler Carl, SenLinYu's Alchemised, and Sarah Adams' In Your Dreams – and we have some opinions.
We're sharing our honest experiences of each one: what worked, what didn't, and whether these books truly earned their place on the bestseller lists. But this isn't just a round of verdicts. We're also pooling our recommendations for the bestsellers we genuinely think are worth your time, like The Correspondant by Virginia Evans – because there are some real gems out there among the hype.
And as always, we round off with our current and upcoming reads.
Press play to find out which bestsellers passed the test – and which ones didn't.
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Explore all the benefits of membership. Kate's weekly reading diary is available to free members. Paid tiers include ad-free episodes, extra shows, chat group access and our monthly book club at Patreon.com/thebookclubreview.
Booklist
You can also find all the books mentioned in The Book Club Review bookshop on Bookshop.org, the online bookstore that supports independent bookshops.
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams
Alchemized by SenLinYu
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Martian by Andy Weir
Nobody's Fool by Harlen Cobden
The Correspondant by Virginia Evans
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Robin Buss)
Rivals by Jilly Cooper
The novels of Stephen King
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Smiley books by John Le Carre
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin
Ice by Jacek Dukaj (Author) , Ursula Phillips (Translator)
The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt
I'll Take The Fire by Leïla Slimani
(also The Country of Others and Watch US Dance)
Lullaby / The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani
Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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New year, new intentions – but if you're in the northern hemisphere, January can feel less like renewal and more like the darkest, coldest stretch of endless winter. Maybe what you need isn't another resolution. Maybe you just need the right book.
Ella Berthoud is an writer and an artist, but most importantly from our point of view a bibliotherapist. She has been prescribing fiction for life's ailments for over a decade. She co-wrote The Novel Cure, a brilliant guide that matches books to every psychological state and is packed with sound recommendations.
Who better then to give me some great suggestions for avoiding the January blues. Join Kate and Ella as they talk about the questions that vex every reader: how do we find more time for reading? How do we escape reading slumps? And how can we read more deeply without it feeling like homework?
Plus of course we're swapping lots of great book recommendations for January and the year ahead. Listen in for a shot of literary inspiration that might be just what you need.
Booklist
The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud
 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter (Jane Degras)
Dálvi by Laura Galloway
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Robin Buss)

Find out more about Ella at ellaberthoud.com

Find all the books mentioned in this episode in the Book Club Review Bookshop, on Bookshop UK, the online retailer that supports independent bookshops.

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Serious Readers
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We're celebrating the end of the year with a look back over our favourite reads of 2025, from new releases to backlist gems, best book club books, best non-fiction, best comfort reads and more. Between us we read over 350 books in 2025. Listen in to hear the ones we loved best. We've also got a radical new idea for a book club involving cold-water swimming and the works of Robert B. Parker, and how to embrace DNFing without guilt. Join us for recommendations to see you through the festive season and set your new reading year off in style.
With Phil Chaffee and Sarah Oliver
Serious Readers
Take advantage of Serious Readers offer. Head to seriousreaders.com/bcr and use the code BCR at checkout for £150 off any HD light.
Patreon
Head to Patreon.com/thebookclubreview for all the benefits of membership and how to sign up.
You can also buy someone gift membership at https://www.patreon.com/thebookclubreview/gift
Booklist
Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
Crudo by Olivia Laing
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngoze Adiche
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Lake Shore by Gary Shteyngart
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm
The First Man by Albert Camus
Robert B. Parker novels
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Muybridge by Guy Delisle
The Sense & Sensibility Diaries by Emma Thompson
The Lockwood & Co novels by Jonathan Stroud
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower
Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple
Maurice and Marilyn, or A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhurst
Agent Zo by Clare Mulley
The Devil Two Step by Jamie Quattro
Train Dreams by Denis Johnston
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnston
The Director by Daniel Kelman
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
How to End a Story by Helen Garner (3 volume diaries collection)
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
This House of Grief by Helen Garner
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
Pet Sematary 1983 cover

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'I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train' wrote Oscar Wilde, in the Importance of Being Ernest. In this episode Kate is joined by critic, editor and podcaster Lucy Scholes and regular pod guest Phil Chaffee to explore the intimate world of diaries. Can immersing ourselves in the details of other people's lives offer us valuable insight into how to fully appreciate the passing moments of our own? From gossipy self-mythologising Samuel Pepys right up to the present with the experimentation of Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries, and the beauty and hard-won insight of Helen Garner's Baillie Gifford prize-winning diaries. Also not to be missed, living it up Vanity Fair style through the glitz and glamour of 80s New York, with Tina Brown.
And if you enjoy this conversation don't miss Part II, over on the Patreon, where we swap notes on our favourite fictional diaries, consider the diaries we'd love to read if they had only been published and share some thoughts on our own diary keeping. You'll find that episode plus lots of benefits including ad-free listening, extra episodes, our community of readers and the pod book club over at patreon.com/thebookclubreview.
And to take advantage of that Serious Readers offer of £150 off any HD light head to serious readers.com/bcr and use the code BCR at checkout.
Book list
The Private Life of the Diary by Sally Bayley
The Paris Review
They by Kay Dick
Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Dinah Brooke
Part of the Story by Margaret Busby
Woman Alive by Susan Ertz
Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista
Look Closer by Robert Douglas Fairhurst
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Robert Latham (ed)
The Diaries of Virginia Woolf
How To End a Story by Helen Garner
Henry Chips Channon: The Diaries
The James Lees Milne diaries
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
There and Back: 1999–2009 by Michael Palin
The Vanity Fair Diaries 1983–1992 by Tina Brown
End of a Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer
War in Val D'Orcia by Iris Origo
Russian Journal by Andrea Lee
Beloved Son Felix: Coming of Age in the Renaissance by Felix Platter
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati
Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
Pharmacopeia by Derek Jarman
Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti
A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter
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