The latest edition of The Thursday Book Club was broadcast on 17th September 2026 at 2pm on Phonic FM. Joining hosts Jonathan Posner and Cathy Dodd were E.I. Parr and Keith Rossiter. Click the names to find out more about them, and use the audio bar below to listen to the full show.
The second hour featured an interview by Cathy Dodd with author Emma R. Schofield. Cathy also played some great music:
- Shadow Play: Joy Division
- Apache: The Shadows
- The Gloaming: Radiohead
- Sea Calls Me Home: Julia Holter
- The Shadow of Your Smile: Tony Bennett
- Leave It Behind: Lunarr
Listen to the show in full here:
The next show is at 2pm on the 15th October 2026.
Our book review will be The Unknown by Riley Sagar (carried over from this month).
Why not read along and send your comments in to The Thursday Book Club?
Leave a message on our Facebook page or email jo******@jo******************.com before 12th October 2026.
We’d love to have your comments and have the opportunity to feed them into our discussion.
BOOK NEWS THIS MONTH
BOOKS AVAILABLE IN ALL GOOD RETAILERS
Super Thursday happened last week – 10th September was the earliest-ever Super Thursday, as It traditionally falls on the Thursday of the first full week in October. Three major authors released new books on the same day: Richard Osman, Julia Donaldson and Jamie Oliver. Osman’s We Chase Shadows is the big fiction title, while the sheer scale of the release day signals the start of the autumn publishing rush.
Richard Osman’s is one of the biggest commercial fiction launches of the autumn. We Chase Shadows is the second We Solve Murders mystery: a body is found at a villa in the Italian hills, sending Amy, Rosie and Steve on a globe-trotting chase through Italy, Barcelona and Palm Springs.
If you enjoyed Osman’s warm humour and ingenious plotting before, this is an easy one to add to the TBR pile.
Switzy by Emma Cline, the author of The Girls and The Guest. She returns with a Booker Prize-longlisted novel about an ageing businessman making one final journey through Europe towards a clinic in Zurich. As his grip on the present begins to slip, the past comes rushing back. It’s a beautifully observed, psychologically rich story about memory, mortality and the life we think we’ve lived.
Taipei Story is by R.F. Kuang. She became a publishing phenomenon with Babel and Yellowface, and her new novel is a very different kind of book. Yale student Lily travels to Taiwan to improve her Mandarin and reconnect with her heritage, but a family death forces her to confront questions about identity, language and belonging. It’s moving, funny and very accessible.
Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson takes us back to 1951 and the Festival of Britain. War-scarred journalist Harry Flynn joins a motley team preparing the exhibition, but when a woman he has been seeing disappears, he becomes a suspect. It combines Atkinson’s trademark wit and characterisation with a proper mystery, and it’s already receiving strong attention from booksellers and reviewers.
The Disappearers is by Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James, who returns to Jamaica in 1988, where eight gay men rehearsing a play are attacked by a mob. One is killed and the survivors must deal with the physical and emotional aftermath. It’s a powerful, ambitious novel about survival, hatred and community, but it’s also a gripping story – and it has already made the 2026 Booker longlist.
Farewell to Eden by Sebastian Faulks, best known for Birdsong and one of Britain’s great historical novelists, who returns today with a new story set in the aftermath of the Second World War. A traumatised soldier arrives in Palestine during the final days of the British Mandate, carrying the psychological scars of war. If you like big, serious historical fiction with strong characters, this is a major autumn release.
Exit Party is by Emily St. John Mandel. The author of Station Eleven returns with a mind-bending story set in a fractured America of 2031. Ari has just left prison and arrives at a party in Los Angeles where people seem to be there who simply shouldn’t exist. Years later, the mystery still haunts her. Expect speculative fiction, crime, parallel realities and Mandel’s trademark questions about how people survive a broken world.
The Pirate Queen is by Ariel Lawhon, who follows The Frozen River with a historical adventure based on the extraordinary life of Grace O’Malley, the sixteenth-century Irish sea captain known as the Pirate Queen. Born into a world that expects her to marry and produce an heir, Grace instead builds a life at sea and eventually challenges English power. It’s a big, sweeping historical adventure with a formidable female protagonist.
LOCAL NEWS
Elizabeth Ducie is launching Atrocity at Ardleigh Academy, number 5 in her Coombesford Chronicles cosy mystery series, at Chudleigh Parish Church on Thursday 8th October. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start. The evening will be hosted by Sharon Cook and will include chat and readings from the new book, live music from Fingers ‘n’ Fumbs, cake and fizz, and the chance to buy a signed first edition. Elizabeth hopes listeners will be able to join her for this celebration.
