The Radio 2 Book Club

About The Radio 2 Book Club

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!

Publisher

BBC Radio 2

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Jan 2023

Latest episode

15 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

100 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Val McDermid and Roisin O'Donnell - Live from Radio 2 In The Park

   The Queen Of Crime - Val McDermid - and winner of our Radio 2 Book Club Award - Roisin O'Donnell - join Sara for some good ole book chat. Sara hosts this very special edition of the Radio 2 Book Club from the BBC Sounds Garden at Radio 2 In The Park - Stirling - in front of a live audience. She chats to the authors about their latest novels, their inspirations, why Scotland is such a good setting for crime fiction - and gets some brilliant book recommendations from them too! Roisin is the inaugural winner of our Radio 2 Book Club Award - and managed to bring her trophy, all the way from Dublin, to show off! Apparently airport security had a few questions... Here's more info on our guests' brilliant books: SILENT BONES - BY VAL MCDERMID When torrential rain causes a landslide on a motorway in Scotland, it reveals a crime scene: someone hid a body in the tarmac eleven years before. Journalist Sam Nimmo had been the prime suspect in the murder of his fiancée when he disappeared, and now DCI Karen Pirie and her Historic Cases Unit must find out who buried him, and why.Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, new evidence reopens a closed case and the accidental death of a hotel manager starts to look like murder. But what did Tom Jamieson's book club have to do with his demise - and what will they do to keep their secrets?Karen and her team begin to untangle a web of lies, one that connects their murder cases with Scotland's rich and powerful. They will be tested to their limits - and possibly beyond . . .NESTING - BY ROISIN O'DONNELLOn a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control – and what will be the cost?

2. 

   8 Sept 2026

   'Agrippa' by Robert Harris

   Sara welcomes international bestselling author Robert Harris to the Book Club. This is Robert's FIFTH time on the Radio 2 Book Club, making his the author with the most appearances to date! They discuss 'Agrippa', his new novel, which sees Robert return to Ancient Rome - something he hasn't done since his Cicero trilogy in 2015. They chat about Robert's fascination with the character of Agrippa, why he's not as well-known as Augustus Caesar, and how you get in the mind of a person like that as a novelist. (turns out, all you need is a giant bust of the persons head on your desk!) We also hear a clip from the audiobook - narrated beautifully by Simon Russell Beale - and get a top book recommendation from Robert as well. Here's a little more info on 'Agrippa':Julius Caesar is dead, and the lives of two teenaged boys are about to be changed forever. One is Caesar’s 17-year-old nephew, Octavius, whom he has made his heir.The other is Octavius’s closest friend, Agrippa.To claim Octavius’s inheritance, they must fight the giant figures of the Roman Empire – and, against all odds, they win. Octavius becomes the Emperor Augustus. For twenty years, they rule the world together.Now Agrippa is fifty. Ailing and alone, betrayed by his wife’s infidelity, he takes refuge in his house on the Bay of Naples and begins to write his memoirs. Yet to stir up the past can be dangerous. From his earliest meetings with Julius Caesar, through the epic conflict with Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the great naval battle of Actium and the endless wars to expand the empire, he describes how one man has dominated his life: the cunning, ruthless, unknowable Octavius.When it comes to power, does friendship exist at all?

3. 

   31 Aug 2026

   'Ghost Month' by Simon Wroe

   Author Simon Wroe joins Sara for a chat about his new novel, 'Ghost Month'. They discuss ghosts and spirits and the inspirations behind this story. The novel is set in London and told from four different character perspectives. Simon tells us about each character and how he formed them, as well as some real-life experiences which influenced him too. He also recommends us a book he's enjoyed reading recently - and - we hear a clip of the audiobook too! Here's a little more about 'Ghost Month': Every September, the spirits of the dead return before vanishing four weeks later in a puff of green ash.The haunting has become a holiday - part Christmas, part Halloween, full of annual reckonings with the past. The ghosts aren't real in any way that can hurt you, so it's hard to tell the silent spectres from ashen commuters: they linger on train platforms, they crowd buses, they take up space on your sofa. The proper term these days is 'people without pulses'.This year, four strangers prepare for a visit from their dearly departed. The season forces them to confront all the things that haunt them, not just their dead. As suppressed truths emerge from the shadows, each of them will end Ghost Month changed in ways they never imagined.Happy Haunting.

Who has been a guest on The Radio 2 Book Club

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Laura Shepherd Robinson
• Ayse Huseyin
• Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Beth Lewis
• Ros Harding

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.0 / 5

5 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 21 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

29

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

31