John Lanchester: Look What You Made Me Do + Lauren Groff: Brawler + Mary Costello: A Beautiful Loan (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tim Rogers)

What if the most talked‑about streaming show of the moment was a mirror reflecting your most private fears and failures? That unnerving question sits at the heart of John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, a sharp novel about resentment, revenge, money, class and generational unease. Plus: the art of the short story, as Hannah Kent reads and reflects on Lauren Groff’s new collection Brawler; and a woman’s inner life rendered with quiet and devastating precision in Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan.

BOOKS

• John Lanchester, Look What You Made Me Do, Faber
• Lauren Groff, Brawler, Hutchinson Heinemann
• Mary Costello, A Beautiful Loan, Text

GUESTS

• Hannah Kent, novelist behind the phenomenon Burial Rites + The Good People, Devotion and Always Home, Always Homesick
• Tim Rogers, author of Detours; frontman of You Am I, The Hard-Ons and various musical escapades. His solo tour Le Charme Defensif kicks off this week

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road
• Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• Michelle de Krester, Theory and Practice
• Jacqueline Maley, Lonely Mouth
• Erin Somers, The Ten Year Affair 
• James Joyce, The Dubliners; The Dead 
• Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
• Colm Tóibín, The Magician
• Steve Hanley, The Big Midweek: Life Inside the Fall

CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Craig Tilmouth, Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor; Sarah L'Estrange