Books on Podcasts: Siri Hustvedt's memoir pays tribute to her late husband Paul Auster
From memoirs to conversations about modernism, crime writing and the Carnegie Medal, authors delved into the inspiration behind their latest works.
Siri Hustvedt appeared on the Waterstones podcast to discuss her memoir Ghost Stories (Hodder & Stoughton), which has been described as a "tribute" to her relationship and marriage to the late novelist Paul Auster. Recalling her first time meeting Auster at a poetry reading in New York, Hustvedt said: "We left... and right inside the exit I see this absolutely beautiful man, leaning against the wall, a little hunched over in a leather jacket, with either a little cigar or cigarette between his fingers. I said to my friend: ‘You don’t know who that is, do you?’ And he said: ‘Yes, that’s Paul Auster, the poet.’ And I thought, ‘Poet! Oh my god, even better. Not only is he great to look at, but he’s a poet’."
Laughing, she continued: "I said [to my friend], ‘Introduce us right now’, and he did. We all took a cab downtown to a literary party and I just stuck to him. I just imposed myself on this very handsome man, and we talked and we kept talking... Late in the evening, we were sitting across from each other, and I thought: ‘Yep, I’ve talked some interest into this man.’ And I took him home." The "private marital joke was", Hustvedt said, "I was in love in 30 seconds and it took him several hours."
On Take Four Books, host James Crawford interviewed Deborah Levy about her new novel My Year In Paris with Gertrude Stein (Penguin). Levy described Stein as the "literary lion of modernism" and cited Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse as one of the influences on the novel.
"Virginia Woolf is a dazzling writer... They were both trying to do something different with consciousness in their century, that is to say subjectivity, how we experience things in our mind. They were trying to do something with women’s interiority, particularly Virginia Woolf. By the time she gets to the dazzling To The Lighthouse – oh my goodness. Virginia Woolf is really writing about her mother and father – her tyrannical father... She changed the way consciousness moved on the page."
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Host Sara Cox spoke to "superstar" librarian and chair of the 2026 Carnegie awards judging panel Stella Hine about this year’s prize on the Radio Two Book Club podcast. "All the books are nominated and judged by librarians...every judge reads every book," said Hine. Speaking on one of her favourite books of the year, Hine highlighted Jack Hope’s Ming The Panda: A True Story of Courage and Hope (Otter Barry Books), illustrated by Yu Rong. "Picture books, in my opinion, are often the most sophisticated of all and the best of them tell stories in few or no words. They’re accessible, they’re brilliant for all ages and brilliant for shared reading."
Anthony Horowitz joined hosts Simon and Matt on Simon Mayo’s Books of the Year podcast to discuss A Deadly Episode (Cornerstone), his sixth thriller novel featuring Detective Hawthorne. A notable feature of the Hawthorne novels is that Horowitz has written himself into the stories as Hawthorne’s companion.
"I am sort of the Watson to his Holmes – an idea which horrified my publishers when I pitched it to them... The Anthony in the books is fairly idiotic – he’s always five steps behind Hawthorne, never gets anything right and ends up stabbed in two of the books and in hospital. I love the role I have which is, instead of being the cleverest person – which is the writer who knows everything, including who the killer is – I’m instead the sidekick, who classically is always a bit dim. Watson, I have to defend because he’s brighter than people think, but Hastings, who works with Poirot, has a low IQ, it has to be said." Horowitz described his latest, which draws on his experience as a screenwriter, as an "easy read but complicated to think up".
On other bookish podcasts, Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson interviewed YA fantasy author Chloe Gong on Book Club in the Pub; hosts Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett examined Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway on The Book Club; Rosie Walsh featured on Quick Book Reviews and Michael Connelly appeared on Books on the Beach.
