Luke Kennard joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss Black Bag, his offbeat novel shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. A penniless actor takes a job wearing an oversized black bag as part of a university experiment, with unexpected consequences for love, friendship and the possibility of turning the whole thing into a business.

We discuss the novel’s exploration of masculinity, the real-life experiment that inspired the story and how writing in the first person unlocked something new for him.

A conversation about contemporary fiction, the creative process and the absurdities of being human.

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Roddy Doyle joins Tom’s Book Club to talk about A Ghostly Little Book, a new collection of contemporary ghost stories from five acclaimed writers.

Ghost stories have fascinated writers for centuries, from Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens to Shirley Jackson and Toni Morrison. In A Ghostly Little Book, Roddy Doyle is joined by Olga Ravn, Eliza Clark, Tom Crewe and Helen Oyeyemi, each offering a different take on what a ghost story can be — from strange and unsettling to funny, moving and genuinely frightening.

In this conversation, Roddy Doyle discusses where his story came from, what makes a great ghost story and the difference between writing a short story and a novel.

We recorded the conversation the day after the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist was announced, giving us the chance to look back at Roddy's experience as Chair of the Booker Prize judges in 2025. He talks about the experience of reading so many novels as a judge, how it changed the way he reads, and what it was like returning to the Booker Prize more than 30 years after winning it himself.

Roddy Doyle won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and is the author of thirteen novels, as well as books for children, plays and screenplays.

If you're interested in Roddy Doyle, A Ghostly Little Book, ghost stories, Irish literature, the Booker Prize, contemporary fiction, short stories, writing and the creative process, this episode offers an in-depth conversation with one of Ireland's most celebrated writers.

A Ghostly Little Book is out now.

📚 Buy books discussed on the podcast through the Tom’s Book Club Bookshop.org page: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/TomsBookClub

Tom’s Book Club may earn a small commission from purchases made through our Bookshop.org link, at no extra cost to you.

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Hernan Diaz joins Tom’s Book Club to talk about Ply, his new novel set centuries in the future. Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In Ply, an orphan grows up to become a “pincher”, someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell on the black market. When she finds herself being followed, she is drawn into a mystery involving a groundbreaking experiment that could change the fabric of reality.

In this conversation, Diaz discusses the origins of Ply, creating its distinctive future world and why he doesn't consider it simply a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel. He talks about technology, what it means to be human, as well as the research behind the novel, including his time at CERN and its influence on the book's physics.

Diaz also discusses the importance of music to his writing, his decision to write longhand with a fountain pen, and what winning the Pulitzer Prize for Trust changed about his life and work.

If you’re interested in Hernan Diaz, Ply, Trust, science fiction, literary fiction, technology, writing and the future, this episode offers an in-depth conversation with one of contemporary literature’s most acclaimed authors.

Want to read Ply? You can buy a copy through the Tom’s Book Club Bookshop.org page: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/TomsBookClub

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