The Waterstones Podcast

Ranking history

About the show

Latest episodes

• Louise Kennedy

  September 29, 2026 · 25 min

  Louise Kennedy has followed her Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize-nominated Trespasses with another brilliant novel, Stations, which follows the trajectories of two teenage friends as they leave '80s Ireland for London. We sat down with her…

• Ann Patchett

  September 14, 2026 · 27 min

  After losing her best friend, Ann Patchett poured all that love into her new novel, Whistler. Bringing platonic love to the fore, alongside the unearthing of the past and a reckoning with our own mortality; we sat down to speak with her…

• Xand van Tulleken

  September 9, 2026 · 41 min

  50% of people in the UK take supplements and the consumer blood-testing industry is now a $128 billion business. But does any of it work? In an increasingly confusing world Xand van Tulleken wanted to cut through the noise to sort fact…

• Rebecca F. Kuang returns!

  September 7, 2026 · 26 min

  In her most personal novel yet, Rebecca F. Kuang transports readers to Taipei, where Yale student Lily is working on her Chinese language to better connect with her Chinese family, only for loss to appear suddenly and change her…

• Kate Atkinson

  September 1, 2026 · 26 min

  Kate Atkinson's latest novel beautifully combines her skills in historical detail and crime caper plotting for a story which assembles a motley crew of misfits attempting to curate 1951's Festival of Britain. We sat down to speak with her…

• Rebecca Perry

  August 25, 2026 · 23 min

  Join us as we celebrate Rebecca Perry as the author of this year's Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize-winner, May We Feed The King. Over a glass of bubbly, we discuss the connections between her curator character and the art of writing…

• Jon Ronson

  August 20, 2026 · 34 min

  Jon Ronson's latest journalistic adventure begins with a series of text messages from his son which then leads to an odyssey from reality TV, to influencers, to America's disenfranchised men to paint a portrait of masculinity in crisis as…

• Alice Oseman

  July 1, 2026 · 26 min

  When Alice Oseman created the first volume of Heartstopper on her own, she couldn’t have foreseen what a phenomenon it would become. As the final volume hits shelves and the Netflix adaptation concludes with the film Heartstopper Forever…