The Curiously Specific Book Club

Jul 31 2023 80

The Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast artwork

Forget Downton Abbey or The Crown, we use classic novels to guide you through the Britain of today and yesterday. Every podcast, Lloyd & Tim – two funny book-loving blokes – take you on a walk or a road trip, using a well-known novel as the only guide. Great literature, amazing landscapes and general laughter guaranteed with every episode.
Your presenters are:
Tim Wright (r): digital writer/consultant for web, mobile, radio, TV, theatre. Half of xpt.com. Former Head of Immersive at NFTS. Web here, Twitter here.
Lloyd Shepherd (l): author of 4 novels: The English Monster. The Poisoned Island. Savage Magic. The Detective and the Devil. Also does digital product development. Web here, Twitter here. Get early access to new episodes and bonus content
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John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 2: hit the beach at North Foreland, Kent, in search of dastardly German spies

Jul 31 2023 51 mins

In Part Two of our Buchan-based adventure we switch from Scotland to the Kent coast. We’re in search of the eponymous 39 steps. But first we need to locate Trafalgar House where German secret agents are hiding out. We end up at North Foreland, between the homes of a German-hating lord and a German-loving marquess. And, yes, we did find some steps! Get early access to new epi

John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 1: experience the thrill of a chase through Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

Jul 24 2023 51 mins

It’s an iconic moment in British literature – John Buchan’s hero Richard Hannay running across a moor with police, secret agents and an airplane all trying to hunt him down. But is it based on any kind of reality? We head for the Scottish Lowlands to find out, taking in abandoned train lines, the site of a car crash and a very remote farmhouse. Get early access to new episode

Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part Two: a North Foreland discovery

Jul 17 2023 58 mins

We return to Ramsgate in Kent with Margot Bennett’s brilliant thriller THE WIDOW OF BATH as our only guide. The book was published in 1952, the same year as rock and roll had its birthday. We’re looking for a hat shop and a suspicous employment agency and we’re pretty confident we’ve found both.We date the book’s action to 1951 with some of our usual close reading, before

Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part One: Shady goings-on in Ramsgate

Jul 10 2023 48 mins

A young man with a questionable background is sitting in a small hotel by an unnamed harbour in England. He is ostensibly writing a review. Behind him he hears a party of unseen people come into the hotel restaurant. He knows their voices. They are people from his past. One of them, he had a love affair with. She is now married to a judge. The judge’s name is Bath.So begins Margo

Geoffrey Household’s ROGUE MALE Part 2: pursuit across Dorset – tracking down a secret holloway-hideaway

Jul 03 2023 51 mins

In Part Two we get out of town and attempt to bury ourselves in the Dorset countryside. We start at Dorchester, track down the narrator’s fake hideaway in the Sydling valley and then search for the famous ‘holloway’ where our hero tries to evade his pursuers. Is it a real place? Listen now to find out. Get early access to new episodes and bonus content Hosted on Acast. See ac

Geoffrey Household’s ROGUE MALE Part 1: pursuit across London – Hurlingham steps to the Aldwych tube

Jun 26 2023 49 mins

We take the classic 1939 thriller out for ride, starting precisely where the book’s hard-boiled narrator makes land in London at Hurlingham. We track down his hotel off the Cromwell Road and then re-enact a tense chase around Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Holborn, ending in a (fictional) death at a defunct London Underground station. Get early access to new episodes and bonus conten

AA Milne’s WHEN WE WE VERY YOUNG Part 2: the ghost of a golf course, and a swan called Pooh

Jun 19 2023 49 mins

It’s the second part of our adventure with AA Milne’s astonishingly popular book of verse for children, WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG. And, like Milne himself often was, we’re back on a golf course – or at least, we’re in where an Addington golf course used to be, and we’re wondering if Milne played there. We also visit somewhere rather special – Decoy Cottage in Sussex, wh

AA Milne’s WHEN WE VERY YOUNG Part 1: down to Buckingham Palace with Alice

Jun 12 2023 52 mins

AA Milne’s book of poetry for children, WHEN WE VERY YOUNG, was stupefyingly successful – it may be the most successful volume of poetry ever published. In the first part of our adventure, we discover bears everywhere: waiting for us to step on cracks in the pavement outside the Chelsea home where AA Milne lived with his wife Daphne and, of course, his son Christopher Robin; be

Alice Oswald’s DART Part 2: from Buckfast Abbey to the Mew Stone via a derelict dairy and a boatyard

Jun 05 2023 52 mins

In Part Two of our adventures along the River Dart, we wonder whether the poet Alice Oswald genuinely walked the whole of the river from source to sea, thus producing her magnificent 2002 work ‘Dart’. We definitely believe she sat by the Totnes weir and probably saw seals on the Mew Stone. But did she really note down the names of all those boats in the many mooring sites along

Alice Oswald’s DART Part 1: Dartmoor to Buckfastleigh on foot, in a car – and on a steam train!

May 29 2023 45 mins

Alice Oswald’s long poem ‘Dart’ provides a journey in verse from the source of the River Dart all the way to the sea. We take the same journey using the poem as our guide. We hope to unlock our inner poets and verify all the locations mentioned in ‘Dart’. We certainly had a lovely day out - on the moor and on a steam train! Get early access to new episodes and bonus conte