The Book Club: Ariane Bankes

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Conn Iggulden, probably the best selling author of historical fiction of our day. This week Conn publishes Nero, the first in a new trilogy about the notorious Roman emperor. He tells me about how he learned to write historical fiction, his years-long path to overnight success, and the advantages (and disadvantages) of having an audience comprised of men who can't seem to stop thinking about the Roman Empire.

Tom Hayward is an award-winning food writer, a broadcaster, and proprietor of the bakery Fitzbillies in Cambridge. He writes regularly for the FT Magazine and often appears on BBC Radio 4. Following the bestsellers Food DIY, Knife, and Loaf Story, his eighth book, Steak: The Whole Story, is out on the 23rd May.  On the podcast, Tim tells Liv and Lara about his childhood concoction 'dead man's finger', the secret to great beef and the joys of a 6pm martini. 

Matt McDonald, managing editor of the US edition of The Spectator, joins Freddy Gray to discuss whether Biden is losing the swing states, the potential outcome of the Trump-Biden TV debates, and who the polls are spelling trouble for.  Produced by Megan McElroy.

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery interviews Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud (1:13); former prisoner David Shipley ponders the power of restorative justice (8:23); Patrick Kidd argues that the Church should do more to encourage volunteers (14:15); Cindy Yu asks if the tiger mother is an endangered species (21:06); and, Hugh Thomson reviews Mick Conefrey’s book Fallen, examining George Mallory’s tragic Everest expedition (26:20).   Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Shabana Mahmood is the shadow secretary of state for justice. She was born in Birmingham to migrant parents. After studying Law at Lincoln College, Oxford, where Rishi Sunak was a contemporary, she qualified as a barrister and lived and worked in London. First elected to Parliament in 2010, representing Birmingham Ladywood, she was one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs. On the episode, Katy Balls talks to Shabana about her upbringing in the UK and in Saudi Arabia; how her faith is central to who she is as a person; and her approach to the tricky issues of abortion and assisted dying. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

This week: Veep show: who will Trump pick for his running mate? Freddy Gray goes through the contenders – and what they say about America (and its most likely next president). ‘Another thought might be buzzing around Trump’s head: he can pick pretty much whoever he wants because really it’s all about him. He might even choose one of his children: Ivanka or Donald Junior. What could sound better than Trump-Trump 2024?’ Freddy joins the podcast. (02:10) Next: Will and Lara take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including David Shipley’s piece on the issues in the criminal justice system and Patrick Kidd’s article on the C of E’s volunteering crisis. Then: Everest. This year marks 100 years since George Mallory’s doomed expedition. On the 8th June 1924 George Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine were seen through binoculars 800 ft from the summit of Mount Everest, but sadly were never seen again. Whether they did reach the top – almost 30 years prior to Edmund Hillary’s confirmed summit – has been the source of debate and myth for a century. Two new books will be released this year revisiting the attempt, and the man behind them. One by former political editor at the Sun, Tom Newton Dunn (great nephew of Mallory) and the other by mountaineer Mick Conefrey – which is reviewed this week in The Spectator. Tom and Mick joined the podcast to discuss. (17:51) And finally: Next week marks the anniversary of the death of Spectator’s Low Life columnist Jeremy Clarke. And on Tuesday a new collection of his columns is being published: Low Life: The Final Years. The book begins with his cancer diagnosis in 2013 and goes up until his last column, published two weeks before his death last year. Regular readers will know that Jeremy’s genius was to capture the beauty and absurdity of the everyday – he chronicled it all with extraordinary frankness and brilliant wit. And so to remember Jeremy, and his peerless writing, we were joined by his widow, the artist Catriona Olding, who writes a guest Life column in this week’s magazine, and his friend Con Coughlin, defence editor at the Telegraph. (33:35) Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. If readers would like to buy Low Life: The Final Years, copies are available on the Spectator Shop - go to spectator.co.uk/shop.

Freddy Gray talks to American columnist and commentator Guy Benson about who is in the running to be Trump's VP. Who does Trump want? But more importantly what does the Trump ticket need?  Also: Biden/Trump debates appear to have been confirmed. Who will the debates benefit most? And how relevant are they in the digital age? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons. 

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! On this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Olivia Laing to talk about her new book The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Olivia explores what it is we do when we make a garden, through her own experience of restoring the beautiful garden in her now home. She tells me about what gardens have meant in literary history and myth, how they have occluded certain real-world injustices even as they stand in for utopias, and why Candide's injunction cultiver notre jardin will always be an ambiguous one.   

Last week, President Xi Jinping visited Serbia. An unexpected destination, you might think, but in fact the links between Beijing and Belgrade go back decades. One event, in particular, has linked the two countries – and became a seminal moment in how the Chinese remember their history. In 1999, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by US-led Nato forces. Three Chinese nationals died. An accident, the Americans insisted, but few Chinese believed it then, and few do today. The event is still remembered in China, but now, little talked about in the West. Xi’s visit was timed to the 25th anniversary of the bombing itself. ‘The China-Serbia friendship, forged with the blood of our compatriots, will stay in the shared memory of the Chinese and Serbian peoples’, Xi wrote for a Serbian paper ahead of the visit. So what exactly happened that night in May, and what does the event – and its aftermath – tell us about Chinese nationalism today? Cindy Yu is joined by Peter Gries, Professor of Chinese Politics at Manchester University and author of numerous books on China, including China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy.

Freddy Gray talks to writer and philosopher Curtis Yarvin about how Alexander Hamilton was America's Napoleon, why Putin is more of a royal than King Charles, and why Yarvin admires FDR.  Yarvin is voting for Joe Biden at the next election, but not for the reasons you might think. Could Biden 2024 strengthen the case for American isolationism? Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.