Beneath the Page is the podcast that Sophie Beale and I co-present (it was all her idea, and she very kindly allowed me to crowbar my way into the enterprise), where we talk with authors about their books and try to dig a little into the person behind the keyboard. I've blogged about it before, but if you haven’t come across it , there’s already a wealth of episodes for you to dig into, including episode one where Sophie and I discuss the concept before she interviews me about my books.

A while ago, we decided to add a new strand of episodes to go alongside the original (nay, ‘classic’) style ones. Books Beside My Bed attempts the same task, getting people to reveal something of themselves, but this time through their reading rather than their writing. Guests pick books to fulfil a number of categories – the book that makes you cry, the book that takes you back, the book you think more people should know about, and so on – and share them with us and the audience.

The first of the BBMB episodes sees Sophie interviewing me about my choices (we have also recorded one where I interview her, but I’m still trying to persuade her to publish it. Feel free to start a campaign!) and it is now available on all of our usual channels – YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts. It was great fun thinking through the questions and remembering favourite books, some that I first read decades ago, others that I have discovered much more recently, but all of them holding a place in my heart. What do they reveal about me? Why not check out the episode and see for yourself.

Of course, we’re still producing the classic Beneath the Page author interviews, and I have a huge pile of books (yes, they literally are beside my bed) by potential guests that I’m racing to get through in order to invite them onto the pod. While you wait for that to bear fruit, there are plenty of classic episodes just waiting for your perusal. Give yourself a treat.