ThankBookFor Podcasts
ThankBookFor Podcasts
Welcome, oh welcome weary listener. Rest up, for here you have found what you were looking for.
You are now in the midst of the ThankBookFor podcast collection.
(16 Episodes)
Series 1
Our first series, full of imperfections, mistakes, excellence and love.
The very, very first podcast from ThankBookFor, though admittedly it was about the 75th attempt at doing it. Contained within: the thoughts and musings of librarian and (at the time) soon to be published author G. X. Todd.
Parental Caution Advised (There be mild swearing)
Author Liz Tipping joins us for our second TBF podcast. She discusses why she loves Joey Essex, why she hates the term guilty pleasure, and how much she loves Marian Keyes.
Liz is the lady who designed our awesome logo. Cheers Liz.
Author Liz Tipping joins us for our second TBF podcast. She discusses why she loves Joey Essex, why she hates the term guilty pleasure, and how much she loves Marian Keyes.
Liz is the lady who designed our awesome logo. Cheers Liz.
Episode 3 and we're in Worcester interviewing former librarian and current writer Chris Stanley. Chris tells us about his love of George Orwell, hints at his obsession with the Manic Street Preachers, and gives us a teaser of the novel he's currently working on, The Sad Club.
In this special, feature length episode, we talk to Mark Newbold, writer and co owner of www.JediNews.co.uk, the biggest Star Wars news site in the United Kingdom. Here at ThankBookFor we're all about stories, and there can be no doubting the impact that the story of Star Wars has had on modern society.
Episode 4 brings us back closer to home with fellow librarian, Cath Hancox. From Sir Terry Pratchett to Stephen Fry to Frankenstein, take a peek inside the mind of another ThankBookFor member.
How did a Doctor from Burntwood come to be involved in a bloody revolution in Nepal? To find out, we asked a Doctor from Burntwood that was involved in a bloody revolution in Nepal.
We also asked him about books, because he's a Home Library Officer and he works with us.
In episode 7 we speak to editor, author and all round good egg Phoebe Morgan. Find out how she got an agent, how long she's been making books, and whether or not things randomly fall off her wall during podcast interviews.
Richie 'Call me Richard or Sharpe' Wall gets the TBF Podcast treatment in this week's release. Richie was a stand up comedan for over 7 years, and now works for a charity helping people with liver problems lead a normal life.
Fantasy author Stephen Aryan joins us for a chat about books, agents and writing styles. He also tells us whether he's an architect or a gardener, and how to kill Robocop.
Join us as we interview celebrated children's author Julia Jarman in between performances at the Bournville Bookfest. Due to time constraints there isn't a longer version of the podcast available. Luckily, what we did have time for is podcast gold!
Episode 10 and we are with Gilly McAllister, succesful solicitor and soon to be published by Penguin author. Gilly had just heard about the Penguin deal at the time of recording so as well as finding out about Gilly's literary loves and hates we also get an insight into how it feels to take 'the call'.
For this episode we head to Southcart Books in Walsall to chat to owners Scott Southey and Amy Carter. We also get very jealous. They own a bookshop! Booket* list complete.
*Pun intended
Originally recorded in March as our first ever Skype podcast, we speak to author Kerry Fisher about her literary likes and dislikes. We also find out a bit about her new book, After the Lie.
The penultimate episode of the series sees Bookouture's Publicity and Social Media Manager Kim Nash join us to talk about her love of books, snooker halls, and how she got her ideal job.
It's our third Skype podcast and this week it's the lovely Ann-Marie Howell. A public sector worker by day, we talk to Ann-Marie about her writing, her agent and about a certain writing course that she'd highly recommend.
The final episode of the series is here and this week we're at Harborne Library to welcome best selling author Mike Gayle to the podcast. We chat about Mike's time in the biz, how things have changed, and find out exactly what he thinks of The Martian.
Our second series, which is also full of imperfections, mistakes, excellence and love.
We jump into our second series by interviewing award winning comedian Sara Pascoe.
Sara had a last minute gig to get to so it's not a long one, but we did discuss her new book, Animal, and her dinner party, which might need a referee.
For this week's podcast, with fellow podcaster and comedian Rachel Wheeley, we visited her at work. She gave us a tour of the building (unofficial; the best kind) then we sat down to record. And had a great time doing so.
Oh, she works at Broadcasting House by the way, the home of the BBC.
ThankBookFor took a trip to London to do some very exciting podcasts. First up was the very exciting, and hugely talented, Catherine Webb.
As well as being a first class author, Catherine is also a purveyor of fine pseudonyms. Big thanks to Islington Library for letting us record there.
Ella Bowman works at Little, Brown, an imprint of Ha-Chet-Taaaaay (Hachette).
Ella kindly invited us in to Little, Brown to record the podcast in one of their fairly stunning meeting rooms. Ella clearly loves her books and we thoroughly enjoyed chatting to her about them.
Ben Davis is a children's author from Tamworth. He's also a bloody good sport.
Waterstones in Sutton Coldfield were kind enough to give us some space to interview Ben. Indeed, the interview was so good, we did some bits of it three times....
Winner of the Best Overall Blog Award 2016 at the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards, Suzie started her blog just 3 years ago.
Find out more about how she's achieved that success, and who inspired her to write in the first place, in the podcast.
The lovely Sarah Mitton braved the ThankBookFor podcast this week, taking her turn on 'the other side of the mic'. Listen as Sarah, a member of TBF, talks about her lvoe of Alice in Wonderland, the influence To Kill a Mockingbird, and waiting in line to offend Stephen Fry.
This episode also contains the very first TBF bleeped out swear word. As well as several that weren't.
Paul rushed back from a stay in South America to be on the podcast. And by rushed I mean stayed there till his funds were low then came back home.
He was good enough to come to Tom's house for the interview, where he revealed a shocking truth about Roald Dahl.
As well as being a journalist and author, Marcus was the pop music columnist for The Spectator magazine for over 28 years.
His latest book, Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek, is all about...well, Star Trek.
Co-host duties this week fell to Mark Newbold, he of Series 1, Episode 5 fame
This week's podcast is actually 3 podcasts surgically tethered together via the medium of editing. Originally they were going to be released individually, however interest in being a guest on a podcast is quite high so we decided to make this a 'Special' instead.
So, now that the 'blowing our own trumpet' bit is over, let's get to it. We've put the timings of each podcast next to the name so if, for some weird reason, you don't want to hear the entire podcast, you can skip to the bits you do want to hear.
We recorded this week's podcast back in July at Waterstones, in Birmingham. As you'll find out in the intro, Steve Aryan mentioned that he knew a few fantasy authors who were doing an event in Birmingham, and that they might be up for a podcast. Happily, they were.
WARNING: A lot of the sound on this podcast is laughter, because we were having a really good time. If you're not a fan of laughter, do not listen.
Originally set to be released as part of the ThankBookFor Black Country Festival Series, Brian's podcast was recorded in Glebefields Library, Tipton.
As well as being a proper Black Country 'Mon', Brian has published several books, recorded several CDs (both as Brian, and his alter ego Billy) and written a novel. He has his own radio show on Black Country Radio (102.5 FM & DAB & online) and also regularly contributes to Connections, The Black Countryman and The Bugle.
For this year's Halloween Special we made our way to The Station Hotel in Dudley. Well known locally as a source of paranormal activity, TBF braved the dark and went down into the cellars where, according to legend, a previous landlord of the hotel had murdered and stored the body of a young barmaid he'd been having an affair with.
Luckily for us we were not alone. Simone Taylor and David Ball, Paranormal researchers for nearly 15 years, were there with us.
This week it's Tipton Library manager Robert Hazel's turn to tell us which books influenced him. As this podcast was originally recorded to be part of the Black Country Festival series, we also chat about what the Black Country means to him.
A man who, in his own words, 'likes a bit of saftness', we discuss his love of a certain Rock 'N' Roll band and how he came to have a couple of tattoos later in life.
The Pub Club writing group, based in Solihull, were kind enough to invite ThankBookFor to two of their meetings. The first one took place in a pub and we went along to get to know them a little and find about more about how they operate. Then for the second meeting, during which we recorded the podcast you're about to hear, we went to author Deborah Install's house where it was a little bit quieter.
We had a great time and met some lovely people in the process.
We interviewed Doug via Skype a few weeks ago, and he's great. Not only is he an author, a journalist, a musician, a former designer of radars and resident writer with William Purves Funeral Directors (more of that in the podcast), he's also a huge Iain M. Banks fan.
Find out about his many roles, his love of psychological thrillers and his hatred of The Hobbit, plus a lot more about THAT residency position.
Today's guest on the ThankBookFor podcast is Jen Beardsmore. Jen very kindly agreed to be interviewed earlier in the year, as part of our Black Country Festival series.
Head of Libraries and Archives in Dudley, Jen has been around libraries, and books, for pretty much all her life. Find out what makes her tick, and which books she goes back to time and again.
We also asked her whether or not she likes Marmite...
This week we interviewed former English teacher, author, poet, playwright and stage director BJ Edwards.
BJ has been writing for a number of years, but since completely losing his sight in 2012 he's released Stalking the Shadows, the first book in his Ancient Desstiny series, and more recently, Tesserae, a book of poetry.
We interviewed BJ in his home near Wolverhampton.
Steve Hermon is a BBC Radio WM journalist from The Black Country. He's worked for a number of radio stations, at both a local and national level, and is a keen fan of wrestling. So much so in fact, that he has his own wrestling podcast, which you can find on iTunes, called TheBuzzardsPod.
We interviewed Steve in a wonderful building called The Red House Glass Cone, in Stourbridge. There's a special bonus section on the end with the manager of The Glass Cone, Sarah Hall, telling us a bit more about it.
Maria Lewis is an author and journalist based in Australia. She has contributed to many well known publications, including Empire, The New York Times and BuzzFeed.
We interviewed Maria in Birmingham Waterstones, whilst she was over here touring her first book, Who's Afraid. Her press officer, and all round lovely person Nazia Khatun was also present.
We were running a little short on time for the interview as Maria had to give a talk, but the time we did have was used very constructively.
Series 3
Our third series, full of imperfections, mistakes, excellence, love and half the calories of other podcasts.
It's the opener for Series 3, so we went big. Beth Lewis is an author (debut novel The Wolf Road is EPIC), an editor (Titan Books), an oath maker (though not breaker(listen to find out more)) and a former Fire Eater.
I want to allay any concerns you may have right now, yes, of course I asked about the fire eating.
I spoke to Beth a couple of months ago, and part of this podcast was featured on my radio show.
For the second episode in the series we went all the way to Texas to speak to Fantasy author Michael G. Manning.
Unfortunately an actual trip was decided against, primarily due to cost, time, cost and budget, but a phone call was made and the interview went ahead regardless.
As well as a great discussion about books, Michael told us about his former life in the pharmaceutical industry and his love of climbing trees.
It's episode 3 and this time we went all the way to Sedgley, via Wales.
Author Jeff Gulvin is a Black Country lad, if somewhat removed at the moment and residing in Wales. Well, you would, wouldn't you?
As well as discussing the inspiration behind the main character in his latest series books, John Q, we spoke about New Orleans, Charley Boorman, and THAT petrol station scene in the film No Country For Old Men.
It's already episode 4 of the third series and this time it's Faber & Faber author James Carol speaking to us about, amongst other things, Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King and former FBI profiler, Jefferson Winter.
If you listen to the radio show, Bissell on Books (check Listen Again on www.wcrfm.com) then you'll have already heard part of this interview, but don't worry, we kept the best bits back for the podcast.
It's episode 5 and this time me and Gemma were in for a treat as we sat down and spoke with author extraordinaire, Joanne Harris.
We had to travel all the way over to Moseley (it isn't far), to get to the Pow Wow Festival of Writing at the Prince of Wales pub, where Joanne was the headline act.
We spoke to her about the benefits of social media, Les Misérables and Marmite.
For this week's episode I was lucky enough to speak to Wolverhampton based romance author Kat French.
In readiness for the launch of her new book, The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach, Kat came into the studio to speak to me about My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, how great it is to be able to do her job in her pyjamas, and her favourite author, Marian Keyes. Oh, and her alter ego, the rather rude author, Kitty French.
Series 3, Episode 7
Back in April I was lucky enough to interview Alexandra, author of the amazing novel 'The Last One'.
Part of this interview went out on the radio show at the beginning of May, but there's plenty I didn't have the time to fit in.
Based in Seattle, Ali was happy to talk about all sorts of things with me, including her experiences at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, Yale, and Sea Lion feeding at The Prospect Park Zoo.
Series 3, Episode 8
For today's podcast we travelled to the Edge Lit festival in Derby. One of four recorded at the festival, in this episode we chat to the eminently endearing author, audio narrator and Hugo award winning podcaster, Emma Newman.
We cover Lord of the Rings (and those sequels), Ray Bradbury, accents, Live Action Roleplay and how to record an orgasm for an audio book.
Emma was wonderful company and we honestly could have chatted to her for hours.
Series 3, Episode 9
For this podcast we're taking you all the way back to May, and to the MGM London Comic Con at the Excel Arena.
Jason was one of a number of authors appearing there, and we were lucky enough to grab 45 minutes with him in his hotel room. I mention his hotel room because in his excellent novel, The Last Days of Jack Sparks, there's a few particularly scary scenes involving one of them!
You should read it. Ron Howard did, and now they're turning it into a film.
Series 3, Episode 10
Recorded at the Derby Edge Lit event in July this year, this podcast features award winning fantasy and science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky.
With success in both the Fantasy and Science Fiction field, including the excellent Shadows of the Apt series and the Arthur C. Clarke award winning Children of Time, we obviously asked Adrian to choose between the two.
In a ThankBookFor first, we also spoke about entomology.
Series 3, Episode 11
Another podcast recorded at the Derby Edge Lit event in July earlier this year, welcome to the world of the amazing RJ Barker.
RJ is quite special. He's at once the most softly spoken individual in the room, and the loudest. When he was offered a list of the questions we'd be asking him before the interview, so he could prepare, he declined, saying that was cheating.
Join us for a huge Lord of the Rings reveal, namely that of Gollum's first name, and discover Pokemon characters you never knew existed.
Series 3, Episode 12
For today’s podcast I’m delighted to introduce you all to Mr Lewis Coleman. I’ve known Lewis for quite a long time, though before this recording I hadn’t seen him in a number of years. Lewis is…pretty amazing. He’s an author (as we discuss), a playwright, an actor, he set up a theatre production company in Burnham-on-Sea, he’s a carer for people with autism, he’s travelled extensively, with more travelling planned, and he’s a recovering alcoholic.