Season's greetings, everyone! Join Sophie and Alex as they discuss some of their favourite books from the year, including a round-up of what they read for the show in 2019.
Papertrail is going on hiatus for the first half of 2019, but there are plenty of episodes in the back-catalogue so gorge yourself on them and we'll see you in the future for 'season 2'.
Happy holidays!
Sophie's Choices:
From the show:
Alex's Choices:
From the show:
MUSIC BY: SCOTT GRATTON
Lucia Osborne-Crowley is a writer and journalist. Her news reporting and literary work has appeared in Granta, the Sunday Times, HuffPost UK, the Guardian, and others. ‘I Choose Elena’ is her first book.
Lucia's Book Choices:
You can follow Lucia on twitter @LuciaOC_
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Anna Sherman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied Greek and Latin at Wellesley College and at Lincoln College, Oxford. The Bells of Old Tokyo is her first book.
You can follow Anna on twitter @anna_charlbury
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Season is a London and Berlin-based writer, performance artist and teacher, and an associate producer of the I'm With You art collective. She works as a dramaturg, mentor, sensitivity editor and workshop facilitator in Creative Writing, Performance Practice and Theory, and difference-consciousness training for the arts and heritage sector. Cygnet is her first novel.
You can follow Season on twitter @season_butler
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Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou is a Writer, a Comics Letterer, and the Eisner Award-Winning Editor of PanelxPanel. He has written for screen and for comics, and also runs the excellent Strip Panel Naked on YouTube.
Hass's Book Choices:
You can follow Hass on Twitter @HassanOE
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Hannah Sullivan is a poet and academic currently working at Oxford University. Her first collection of poetry, Three Poems, was published in 2018 and won the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Hannah's Book Choices:
You can find out more about Hannah on her website.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Fiona’s debut novel, Elmet, is set in Yorkshire and explores what happens when a family’s idyllic, self-sufficient life is interrupted by the world outside of them. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and Ondaatje Prize and was also longlisted for the Dylan Thomas and Womens prize. Fiona is currently working on her second novel.
Fiona's Book Choices:
You can follow Fiona on twitter @fjmoz
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You can also support us financially by donating to our Patreon/Steady page, or by buying a book through our affiliate programme. For more information. Click here.
Nicole is a fiction and non-fiction writer, her work has appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, and on BBC 4. She won the 2017 White Review Short Story Prize with her short story ‘Track’. Her short story collection, ‘Show Them A Good Time’ is out now.
Nicole's Book Choices:
You can follow Nicole on Twitter @nicoleflattery
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Michael is the author of ‘Hold’, which was just shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize for first novels. He is a graduate of the Royal Holloway writing programme and lives in London, where he works as a teacher.
Michael's Book Choices:
You can follow Michael on twitter @michaeldonkor
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Marc’s Novel, ‘Three Dreams In The Key Of G’ was published by Dead Ink Books in 2018. He is the author of many other novels, as well as short and flash fiction. He can also be found on YouTube where he reviews and discusses literary and experimental fiction.
Marc's Book Choices:
You can follow Marc on twitter @21stCScribe, on his website, and on YouTube.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Tyler Wetherall is a journalist and author living in New York. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including The Guardian, The Times, Vice, Electric Literature. She teaches Creative Writing and Journalism at Manhattanville College.
Tyler's Book Choices:
You can follow Tyler on twitter @TylerWrites
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Megan Hunter is the author of ‘The End We Start From’. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and she was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award with her short story ‘Selfing’.
Megan's Book Choices:
You can follow Megan on Twitter and Instagram @meganfnhunter
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Chris is the author of the short story collection ‘Mothers’. You can find his ‘A Brief Survey of The Short Story’ columns on The Guardian.
Chris's Book Choices:
You can follow Chris on twitter @Chris_Power
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Happy holidays everyone! This is a different episode to usual, where Alex and Sophie have a festive round-up of some of their favourite books from this year (and a few from previous years)
Was the crackling fire a bit much?
Shownotes:
Rhiannon is a columnist, feature writer, and editor for The Guardian. In 2012 she co-founded The Vagenda which was published in book form by Vintage. Her debut Novel, ‘The Tyranny of Lost Things’ was published by Sandstone Press in 2018.
Rhiannon's Book Choices:
You can follow Rhiannon on twitter @RhiannonLucyC and find out more about her on her website.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Tasha is a SFF writer living in London. Her debut novel, the Mughal India inspired epic fantasy, ‘Empire of Sand’ came out on the 13th of November in the US and the 15th of November in the UK. Go check it out!
TASHA'S BOOK CHOICES:
You can follow Tasha on twitter @TashaDrinksTea
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Daisy’s debut short story collection ‘Fen’ came out in 2016 and made some serious waves. Now, at just 27, she’s on the Booker Prize Shortlist for her novel ‘Everything Under’. Sophie spoke with Daisy about three of the books that are important to her and her writing. (They spoke before the shortlist was announced, so please forgive there being no mention of that).
DAISY’S BOOK CHOICES:
You can follow Daisy on twitter @DJdaisyjohnson
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Aaron is the Director & Editor of Broken Sleep Books as well as the author of the poetry collection ‘Tertiary Colours’. He has two upcoming collections in 2019, ‘Angels The Size of Houses’ and ‘The Last Hundred’
Aaron's Book Choices:
You can follow Aaron on twitter @GodzillaKent
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Kirsty Logan is an author, freelance editor, and book reviewer. She is also a writing mentor for the WoMentoring Project. (Check out a previous episode with WoMentoring Founder Kerry Hudson) Her most recent book, The Gloaming, is out now.
You can follow Kirsty on twitter @KirstyLogan and visit her website for more information.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Hannah is a poet, memoirist and creative writing tutor. Her books include 'Chick', 'Long Time No See', and most recently, 'Chan'.
HANNAH'S'S BOOK CHOICES:
You can follow Hannah on twitter @HannaLowePoet
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Samantha Harvey is the author of four novels, the most recent of which is The Western Wind.
Her novels have been shortlisted many prizes, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award and the James Tait Black Prize. She won the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize.
She lives in Bath, UK, and is a Reader in creative writing at Bath Spa University.
Sam's Book Choices:
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
All The Names by Jose Saramago
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
You can find out more about Sam on her website.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Jules is an author interested how individuals and organisations use therapeutic practices from ancient philosophies and wisdom traditions today.
His first book, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations, explored how people are rediscovering ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and was a Times book of the year. His second book, The Art of Losing Control, was published in the UK in May 2017
JULES'S BOOK CHOICES:
You can find out more about Jules on his website.
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Sharlene Teo was born in Singapore in 1987and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship and the David TK Wong Creative Writing award.
In 2016, she won the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writer's Award for Ponti, her first novel, which is coming out on the 19th of April.
Sharlene's Book Choices:
Things To Make And Break by May-Lan Tan
Nowhere To Be Found by Bae Suah
Dear Friend, From My Life I Write To You In Your Life – Yiyun Li
You can follow Sharlene on twitter @treebirds
Support The Show!
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show. Also, consider supporting the show by buying one of the books we spoke about today using the links above. We get a small portion of what you spend, which helps keep the show running smoothly.
Johnny Harris is a writer, actor, and producer. His latest film, Jawbone, came out in 2017 and has been nominated for a BAFTA. Johnny has also starred in This is England '86, Welcome to the Punch, London to Brighton, and more. He was BAFTA nominated for his performance in This is England '86.
Johnny's Book Choices:
You can follow Jawbone on twitter @Jawbonethemovie
If you haven't already, please consider leaving the podcast a review on iTunes. It makes a massive difference and helps new people discover the show.
Dr Preti Taneja is the author of 'We That Are Young', published by Galley Beggar Press. We that are young was listed as one of the Sunday Times' 'Books of 2017'. She is also the author of a novella 'Kumkum Malhotra' which was published in 2015 and won the Gatehouse Press New Fictions Prize.
As well as being a writer, Preti is a Leverhulme Early Career Reseach Fellow at Warwick University working in the department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice. She is also the co-founder and editor of Visual Verse, an anthology of art and words.
Preti's Book Choices:
You can find out more about Preti by visiting her website. And you can follow her on Twitter @PretiTaneja.