The Waterstones Podcast

Ann Patchett

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

Xand van Tulleken

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 wor

Rebecca F. Kuang returns!

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 Chine

Kate Atkinson

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

Rebecca Perry

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 co

Jon Ronson

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

Alice Oseman

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

Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer writes the kind of novels that you want to press into others' hands when what they need is a book filled with charm, comedy and a sense of romance. Afte

Meet the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2026 Shortlist Authors

The Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize Shortlist is here and it's time to meet the class of 2026. With books that take us from modern America to medieval Europe, from magica

Lily King

Through her writing about love, Lily King has made readers care deeply about her characters and what life does to them. A year on from Heart The Lover's publication and a

Elizabeth Strout

Having captivated readers with the eponymous Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton , Elizabeth Strout has moved down the coast from Maine to Massachusetts for her latest novel

Sathnam Sanghera

George Michael managed to be both enigmatic and to share some of the most personal details about his life but superfan Sathnam Sanghera has looked a little closer to real

Maggie O'Farrell

Following the phenomenal success of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell returns with Land, an epic novel of upheaval and loss beginning in 19th century Ireland, with its roots in Ma

Siri Hustvedt

When Siri Hustvedt lost her husband, Paul Auster, to cancer, her immediate instinct was to write. This, in fact, has always been her instinct and the resulting book, Ghos

Douglas Stuart

When Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize with his debut, Shuggie Bain, it announced the arrival of a distinctive new voice in fiction. Now, after two novels set in his na

Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane

Artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane have already blessed us with The Lost Words and The Lost Spells and their third project together is a field guide like n

Patrick Radden Keefe

The investigative reporting of Patrick Radden Keefe has already given us non-fiction classics like Say Nothing and Empire of Pain. In London Falling, he turns his eye to

Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2026

For the first time ever, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize assembles our shortlisted authors and illustrators for a special interview in which we discover more about

Antony Beevor

The legends surrounding the figure of Rasputin are so well-trodden we may think we know the story, but how did a man born as a peasant come to find himself within the Tsa

George Saunders

Booker Prize-winner George Saunders takes us back to that space between life and death in his new novel, Vigil, leading to a fruitful conversation about providing comfort