Books & Chat: Short Book Reviews & Literary Discussions

Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet has stayed with me ever since I first read it — a story so tender, so exquisitely imagined, it felt like it settled into my bones. With the new film adaptation about to arrive, it felt like the right moment to bring back this episode I recorded five years ago, when the book had just swept through my life and my book club. In this short revisit, we talk about the beauty of O’Farrell’s writing, the quiet power of Agnes, and the way love and loss echo through a family. If you’re returning to the story ahead of the film, or discovering it for the first time, I hope this episode offers a gentle way back into that world.

Bitesize episode - A Review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

A reflective exploration of Intermezzo and Kairos - the pause that gives the meaning and the moment that matters. In this solo episode, Christina shares insights on how timing and intervals shape our experiences.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Christina sit downs with Ang for a candid conversation about what it means to live on the margins - socially, physically, and politically. From the realities of housing insecurity to the quiet resilience of those navigating systems not build for them, this dialogue blands lived experience with sharp insight and gentle wit.

Bitesize Episode: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

The non~negotiable superpower! This book, the first of its kind written by a scientific expert, Professor Matthew Walker explores twenty years of cutting-edge research to solve the mystery of why sleep matters. Looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why We Sleep delves in to everything from what really happens during REM sleep to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction [https://www.waterstones.com/category/cultural-highlights/book-awards/the-womens-prize-for-fiction] 2025 Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month [https://www.waterstones.com/campaign/books-of-the-month] for July 2025 An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge - for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan's Atonement. It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother's country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep - as a guest, there to stay for the season… In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.