The BBC Radio 2 Book Club features the best new fiction around. With a wide range of titles and authors, this is a great resource for recommendations for great reads from both new and much-loved writers, encouraging people to perhaps try out a genre they might not have read before, or simply discover the latest novel from their favourite author.
The Reading Agency, along with a panel of library staff and reading experts across the UK, help the BBC to choose the Book Club titles. Hundreds of the best brand-new fiction titles are submitted to us each year and are then read by our brilliant readers, who select their favourites. The best books are shared with the BBC, and they choose the final picks for the Book Club.
We’re delighted to share three recent Radio 2 Book Club picks that we love, which are featured in the latest Radio 2 Book Club podcast episode that will be on BBC Sounds on Tuesday 26 November. Find out more about them below:
The Coast Road
It’s 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley – the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.
Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey – one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy.
Brilliantly observed from a sharp new literary talent, The Coast Road is a novel about a closed community and the consequences of daring to move against the tide.
Our readers thought:
“Great depiction of a tight-knit town, set against the possibility of legalised divorce for Ireland.”
“The characters were believable, complex and emotional. The different relationships felt very true, between spouses, lovers, parents and children, neighbours and friends.”
“This was a little gem of a book.”
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Margo Millet’s got money troubles. As the child of a Hooter’s waitress and an ex-Pro-Wrestler, she’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college professor – who is very keen not to be involved – she realizes she will need cash fast.
At twenty, alone with a baby, what Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, producing content and writing storylines unlike anything else out there. Help arrives in the form of her live-action role-playing flatmate Suzie, and her father, Jinx – a recovering addict and veteran of the wrestling world, who has experience of making an audience fall in love.
Before she knows it, Margo is an online phenomenon. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?
Our readers thought:
“This is a book that I will be shouting about from the rooftops. A new favourite that I hope to see everyone pick up and that, even now, has got my heart in a chokehold.”
“This book was fascinating – a surprisingly honest insight into the modern world of online content creation, but at its heart was a classic story of a woman trying to play a poorly dealt hand.”
“Incredibly thought provoking, Margo’s story is one that will grab you by the throat and force you to face your own preconceptions and judgements around the sex industry, single mothers and even drug addiction.”
The Ministry of Time
A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL.
In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering ‘expats’ from across history to test the limits of time-travel.
Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as ‘1847’ – Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as ‘washing machine’, ‘Spotify’ and ‘the collapse of the British Empire’. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.
But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?
Our readers thought:
“This book is unique. An excellent novel, conceptually stunning, with writing to match.”
“This was an absorbing read; intelligent, fast-paced and humorous, part sci-fi, part thriller along with a slow burning romance.”
“This book was phenomenal, I couldn’t put it down and it has stayed with me ever since I finished it. ”
Get involved
You can listen to this and other Radio 2 Book Club podcast episodes on BBC Sounds.
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