Episode Details

Philippa opens with a brief history lesson — the word "blurb" was invented in 1907 by a writer mocking self-congratulatory publishers, and his fictional creation Miss Belinda Blurb gave us the word we still use today. Then it's three book reviews and a wide-ranging, genuinely fascinating conversation with David Baldacci — over 200 million books sold — about his latest novel Hope Rises.

📚 Three Book Reviews

The Compound – Aisling Ruhl

Ten women wake up in a desert compound, cameras rolling, waiting for men to arrive. A dark, thought-provoking take on reality TV culture — more layered than it first appears.

They Called Us the Enemy – George Takei

A graphic novel memoir by the Star Trek actor recounting his family's imprisonment in Japanese American internment camps during World War II. Essential, heartbreaking, and — given it has now been banned in some US libraries — more important than ever.

Mad Mabel – Sally Hepworth

81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick has a curious history of people around her coming to a foul end. A beautifully narrated audiobook that defies easy genre labels — somewhere between a slow-burn thriller and the Thursday Murder Club, but entirely its own thing.

🎙️ David Baldacci on Hope Rises

Walter Nash did everything right — worked hard, earned well, built the American dream. Then an FBI agent turned up the night of his father's funeral and told him he had a choice: help bring down the criminal organisation he'd unknowingly worked for, or lose everything anyway.

David and Philippa discuss:

• Why Walter Nash is a metaphor for everyone wondering where they fit in a world being reshaped by AI
• The three-year class action lawsuit David and other authors brought against major AI companies — and the nine-hour deposition in which he was asked whether he'd copied Charles Dickens
• Why he writes in a Greek deli near his Virginia office, where he has an unofficial plaque above his usual table
• Being both an introvert and an extrovert — and why total isolation is actually his nightmare writing location
• The reading crisis: why he stopped letting "I just don't have time to read" go unchallenged at book signings
• The Wish You Well Foundation and why forcing children to read specific books is the fastest way to kill a love of reading
• Growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, and why books were his "body armour against bigotry"
• What he's reading: essays by Jesmyn Ward, a Toni Morrison biography, James by Percival Everett, Kurt Vonnegut's Jailbird, and ARCs from Ann Cleeves and Michael Koryta
• The expression he hopes to see on readers' faces at the end of Hope Rises: a contented sigh, and a little more empathy

Biscuit answer: Cheez-Its — reduced fat, but consumed in quantities that would alarm a nutritionist. His son ate two boxes and then went out to buy a replacement, then ate that one too.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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