Welcome to Reading for Attention, a weekly podcast where we - bezzy mates Paul and Sarah - ‘discuss’ newly-released books, laugh at our own jokes and overuse the words ‘clever’ and ‘interesting’. This podcast is made for people who like reading on the train, in café windows, sometimes even aloud.Each week we’ll let you know the book we’ve chosen and, more importantly, which drink we think pairs nicely with the prose (which is a fancy way of saying – we want to get a bit pissed and feel reall ...
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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Garbielle Zevin with Vodka Soda
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Well, well, well, if it isn't us us us and if we aren't reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. As a special Hallowe'en treat, we finally managed (a month ago) to record an ep especially for you you you. Join us as we dive into the wonderfully weird world of video games and, more importantly, their creators. Zevin has really pulled it out ze ba…
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Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey with Chardonnay
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Guess what - we've finally bothered to record a pod! Aren't we just SO great? We're back with bang, talking about Monica Heisey's Really Good, Actually, and washing it down with a Chardonnay which is usually minging but every once in a while you find one that's really good, actually. Aside from that, we catch up with international travel maven, Sar…
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First things first! Paul, I'm sorry I haven't recorded a new intro yet. It's on the TDL babes. Second things second! We're both really sorry about the sound qual of this one. It's poor. It's only cos we get too excited and start deepthroating our microphones, which we're sure you'll understand, and would do too if you were one half of an internatio…
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Well folx, hold on to your tits because this one is chaos. This week we're chatting about Yara Rodrigues Fowler's Stubborn Archivist, a form-bending piece of autofiction perfy for all you millennial minxes. Sarah didn't like it but Paul did so Sarah likes it now, and we're both certain that you'll love it. Then we talk about tits, kidneys (lack of)…
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Book Lovers by Emily Henry with Wine and Aperol
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We're baaaack! Hiya hunnies, welcome home. The first ep of season 4 is all about Emily Henry's bestselling stunner of a book Book Lovers. It has all the ingredients for a gorgeous flirty summer read - a sexy, high-achieving, powerful woman, a sexy, high-achieving, powerful man (in a suit), and... well, does the rest even matter? Get it READ! Then w…
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SZN FINALE Kidnapped by the Pirate: A Gay Romance by Keira Goddess Andrews with a Rum-Based Drink
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Well hunnies, it's the season/series/season three finale and we have truly saved the best till last. We're treating your lugs to our musings on Keira Andrews' Kidnapped By The Pirate, a swashbuckling tale of romance, shagging and umbilical cords. Since Christmas is but a distant memory, we've ditched the mulled wine for whatever drink we could find…
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Hello gorgies! Today, we're talking about why Jennette McCurdy is glad her mom (mam) died. This is a harrowing story of years-long maternal abuse but our Jen tells it with wit and charm. Saz didn't think she was a fan but by the end of the ep she sort of changes her mind? It's a goodun if you ask me (Paul) so have yourself a merry little read. I'd …
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Why hello Jane! We're back and better(ish) than ever! We've read the 2022 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER this week, Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. And, wow, do we have a lot of thoughts on it. Espesh Saz. We wash* it down with a 7&7 OC style baybay. Delish. Then we chat our usual swivel, and my god aren't you happy to hear it? We cove…
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Hiya huns! Apols not apols for the late upload, we're busy live laugh loving (TM) our way through Autumn and we think you should be too (but, let us accompany you on your hunventures). This week we read/glanced at Hunsnet's sensash The Hundamental Guide to Life and, let us tell you, if you are a hun-in-training or fully-fledged Hun royalty, you're …
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ATTENTION ALL ATTENTION SEEKERS - WE HAVE A GUEST. This week we are reading The Enhancers, the debut novel by Anne K Yoder. But we're not just chatting about it, we're interviewing the author herself! Tune in to hear all about Anne's other life as a pharmacist and how it influenced this dystopian tale set in the fictional near-future town of Lumena…
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Raven Smith's Men with Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
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We’re back from our one week hiatus and Sarah is now fully recovered from her hangover. This week we’re reading Raven Smith’s Men and having two pints of lager and a packet of crisps like the blokes we are. Stunning. There's also a highly exclusive, incredibly elusive tale from Sarah's weekend involving an Academy and Grammy award-winning actress, …
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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke with a Mysterious Drink
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Bonjour hunnés. This week we’re reading Piranesi by Susannah Clarke. Piranesi, the poor lad, is stuck in an endless labyrinth of rooms and statues with no knowledge of the outside world. To be fair, he seems pretty content about it, until he starts uncovering the truth. To drink, we’ve got a mystical creation, and Paul is smug about his. We counter…
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Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley with Vodka Root Beer
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This week, speshes, we're chattin' Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley. Leila is the youngest EVER nominee for the Booker Prize aka a massive show off. Nightcrawling is challenging, heart wrenching and bloody brilliant. Afterwards, to lighten the mood, Sarah and Paul recommend some good horror films then go on to discuss the funniest film moments of all…
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Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados with Espresso Martini and Prosecco chaser
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This week, we're discussing Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados. And it's happy hour, so we're drinking an espresso martini with a prosecco chaser. Isa and Gala flit around New York without a care in the world, except the next time they're going to get their hands on a French martini. This book is light-hearted, hilarious and gives Paul extreme anxiety.…
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Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid with Skittle Vodka Lemonade
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This week, friends and enemies, we've read Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. Emira babysits for a posh white woman who thinks she's woke AF. She has a white boyfriend who thinks he's woke AF. But the woker they reckon they are, the more problematic it all feels. All Emira wants is to make a bit of money and spend some time with Briar, her favourite (st…
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It’s series 3 baby! We. Are. Back. And we’re funnier, cleverer and FITTER than ever before. Join us for another rip-roaring hour of prestige podcast chat. To kick off the series, we’re reading Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin, which interrogates the institution of (you guessed it) the gay bar. This book is sexy, it’s naughty, it’s educational, and fo…
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Attention Seekers, we have come to the end of series 2. I hope you've all booked in weekly therapy sessions over the summer to cope with the planet-sized chasm we are going to leave in your lives. In this eppy, we talk tit licking, holiday reading, and our top 3 books of the series. Why not test your Paul/Sarah fandom by guessing along?! We are goi…
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Season Finale (almost): Becoming Molly-Mae by Molly-Mae Hague with Sex on the Beach
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Hi Girlies, Well, the season finale is upon us!* And what better way to end a fabulous sophomore spree than recounting the delicious nuggets of filtered but otherwise completely unedited wisdom bestowed upon us by the Queen of Instagram - Molly-Mae Hague. That's right followers friends, we've read (and LOVED) the Love Island break-out star's memoir…
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Hiya gorgeous baby cakeys! This week we've had a good old read of the mega CATCHY Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Polish literary sensash Olga Tokarczuk. Don't let the title put you off because despite all the murders and the bleak pontifications on animals not being as important as humanz, and the stuff about stars, this is actually …
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So apparently everyone is talking about No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Except us. Well, now we bloody well are. This is the story of a woman who lives her life inside the portal. In other words, she’s in a perpetual world of YouTube holes, Tiktok swiping and Instagram doomscrolling. I can’t relate, myself. We wash this one down …
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In this week's episode of Reading for Attention, we journey north to Sri Lanka for A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam. Krishan receives a phone call to let him know his grandmother's carer has been found dead at the bottom of a well. Krishan travels from New Delhi to attend the funeral, contemplating life along the way. Sarah set us the impossibl…
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Morning Attention Seekers. This week's ep is Jennifer Egan's The Candy House. Sazza's been waiting 11 years for this Goon Squad follow up and BY GEORGE is she excited about it. Paul on the other hand... not so much. We're washing this one down with a nostalgia-tastic Dip Dab-tini (with slight modifications because it was much harder to get our hand…
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Sarah is in Lisbon which means we haven't had a chance to record this week. But fear not! We're treating you to an extra speshy bonus eppy where we talk about our fave childhood books and how they helped us become the absolute stunners we are today. We're not going to reveal what they are because we want you to listen (duh). In this eppy, we say th…
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Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters with Spiked Coke Float
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Destransition, Baby is this week’s book and it was recommended by one thousand (three) fans. Meet Reese, Ames and Katrina, a trans woman, a trans woman who has detransitioned, and a cis woman, respectively. Katrina finds herself pregnant by Ames even though Ames thought he was sterile due to hormone treatment. Reese is desperate to be a mother. Can…
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This week's eppylicious is all about two things: The Audacity (Katherine Ryan's hilarious memoir) and Eurovision (the single most important event in the global calendar). We marvel over Katherine Ryan's effortless wit, charm and unapologeticness (Sarah says 'unapologetically' approx. 95 times) while drinking a beautiful glass of Porta (which Paul m…
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My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood with Newie Zee Sauvy Bee
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In this week’s epster, we discuss Margaret Atwood’s latest short story, My Evil Mother. Y’know why? Because it’s dead short. But y’know what? It was dead good. Afterwards, we talk about our dream meals. Not like we’ve stolen the format from another famous poddy or anything. LOL. Adore you all x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform…
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This week's eppy brings you our Nobel prize-worthy thoughts on Douglas Stuart's second novel, Young Mungo. Set in the East end of Glasgae - Scottish for Glasgow for those who aren't in the know - this beautiful/heartbreaking/stunning/tearjerking novel is all about what it means to be stuck within the confines of a repressive existence. We implore y…
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Bewilderment by Richard Powers with Bootleg Long Island Iced Tea
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In this week's ep of Reading For Attention, we are thouroughly bewildered by Richard Powers' latest offering - a Booker-shortlisted novel about fatherly love, science and a knock-off Greta Thunberg. There's a chance we're also bewildered from drinking bootleg Long Island Iced Tea containing five shots of random spirits we found in our cupboards. Af…
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In this week's eppy, we're talking about Raven Leiliani's millenial debut, Luster. We follow Edie (who knew?), a black woman in her early twenties who gets involved in a love triangle with a fortysomething white man in an open-ish marriage. Bizarre. We wash the story down with a Love and Lust cocktail, and Paul substitutes the watermelon for pomegr…
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In this week’s eppy, it’s Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto On Never Bloody Well Giving Up. After winning the Booker Prize in 2019 for her triumphant novel, Girl Woman Other, our Bernadine became an overnight success. But Manifesto stories the 40 plus years of slogging it took to make that happen. Get ready for her work ethic to make you feel like a …
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Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez with Spiked Milkshake
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Hi hunnies. It's Sarah and Paul. How have you been coping without us? We presume life hasn't been nearly the same since our sensual tones left your hairy ear canals. But you're in luck because Reading for Attention is BACK. In the sensational launch eppy of series two (which is nothing short of a masterpiece and that's a fact fact fact) we start of…
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Series One Finale
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Well hunnies, this is it. Big fat hankies at the ready because series one of Reading for Attention has come to an end. We encourage you to take a couple of days off work to deal with the trauma. The final eppy is all about Sarah and Paul’s top 3 books of the series, tales from Sazzy’s birthday and Paul’s upcoming trip to the US of A, the main goal …
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In this week’s ep, Old Dickie Osmo is back with The Man Who Died Twice, sequel to The Thursday Murder Club. The same gang of gerries are back to investigating murders but this time, the stakes are high AF. We’re talking diamonds worth 20 mill, mafia drug lords and bodies piling up like nobody’s bloody business. Sarah and Paul chat about Dickie’s gr…
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In this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Sarah and Paul yammer on about Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by the undisputed millennial GOAT, Michaela Coel. Adapted from her 2018 MacTaggart Lecture, Coel champions ‘misfits’ everywhere, shedding light on racism in the TV industry. She weaves in tales of growing up in East London, and her journey …
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In episode 16 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah burst with nostalgia reading Jason June’s YA debut, Jay’s Gay Agenda. Jay lives in a boring, straight town somewhere in America. He’s never met a gay person and has certainly never seen a peen (other than his own, obv). But when his family relocates to Seattle, Jay becomes the horny teenager he…
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In episode 15 of Reading for Attention, Pazzy n Sazzy jump into Zaina Arafat’s debut novel, You Exist Too Much. The unnamed Palestinian-American narrator can't escape the liminal spaces of her complex existence, and is desperate to find a home that makes sense of her sexuality and heritage at the same time. S&P neck a cardamon (cardamom?) cosmopoli…
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In this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Sarah and Paul dive into The Thursday Murder Club, the record-breaking debut novel by Richard Osman aka Paul’s close personal friend. Meet Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Roy, residents of the luxurious Cooper’s Chase retirement village in Kent. The core four get together every Thursday (duh) to solve …
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In episode thirteen of Reading for Attention, Saz and Paz take on Amia Srinivasan’s collection of essays, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Century, which cover a range of topics including porn, not sleeping with students, incel culture and how sex must be deemed an inherently political act. Don’t worry though - they balance all that superfici…
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In episode 12 of Reading for Attention, Saz and Paz (new nicknames they’re trying out) are glugging Big Tom Bloody Marys after a wine-drenched weekend together in Kent. They can’t help but wallow in the (slightly later than usual) onset of the January blues but it’s ok because they then get to wax lyrical over Eliza Clark’s twisted, pitch-black com…
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In the first episode of 2022, Paul and Sarah discuss their first ever fan-recommended book, Absorbed by Kylie Whitehead. This genre-bending tale is darkly comic, mega millennial and all-round weird AF. The protagonist literally absorbs her boyfriend so he can't leave her - very Paul and Saz vibes. Other topics the huns ramble on about in this ep: L…
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In this week's super speshy New Year’s Eve eppy, Paul and Sarah haven't even read a book (and they are buzzing about it). Instead, they talk about their favourite 2021 moments, from Ukrainian bangers to Kim Kardashian serving Met Gala dementor chic. But most importantly, they reminisce about the moments that earned them their biggest dollop of that…
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The Christmas Special episode of Reading for Attention is here! This week, Paul and Sarah snuggle up with a toasty mug of mulled wine and a hunky lumberjack-cum-Santa (pun absolutely intended). Keira Andrews leaves readers tingly in the nether regions and definitely on the naughty list with her tale of Hunter and Nick, an unlikely pair who find the…
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In episode 8 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah make their first foray into the world of non-fiction, chatting about Shon Faye's The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice. While most people spent their lockdowns making shit banana bread and crying, Shon Faye penned a Sunday Times bestseller which explores transgender liberation in the UK…
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In episode 7 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah discuss Damon Galgut’s The Promise, winner of the 2021 Man Booker Prize. The novel follows the Swarts family through four decades, beginning in 1986, and maps the trickle-down effects of societal and cultural changes in South Africa. Galgut packs a helluva lot into this family saga including dea…
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In episode 6 of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah discuss Zakiya Dalila Harris’s hotly anticipated debut novel, The Other Black Girl. Nella is the only black employee at the esteemed publishing house, Wagner Books. A young and ambitious assistant editor, she endures daily racist microaggressions from her white colleagues. When Hazel - another b…
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On this week’s episode of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah ramble on about Matt Haig’s 2020 smash hit, The Midnight Library, which captured the world’s collective heart, selling 2 million copies in less than a year. Join Nora Seed in The Midnight Library, a magical realm betwixt life and death where it is possible to undo all the regrets you w…
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In this week's episode of Reading for Attention, Paul and Sarah dive into the mobster-ruled world of Harlem in the late 1950s. Colson Whitehead's eighth novel, Harlem Shuffle, is a story divided into three parts, woven together through deliciously detailed settings, complex characters, and sociopolitical issues that still bear true almost seventy y…
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Episode 3 of Reading for Attention is here! Paul and Sarah chat about Bryan Washington’s debut novel, Memorial, which earned him critical acclaim AND the Stonewall Book Award 2021. Talk about attention-seeking. Memorial is partly set in Japan so the drink this week is a mega-classy Lychee Sake Martini. Delicious. (And dangerous, because there’s no …
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Episode 2 of Reading for Attention is here! This week Paul and Sarah discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's newest novel Klara and the Sun. The eighth novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author is a dystopian sci-fi set in a sometimes horrifying close future but with a sunny outlook. So sunny, in fact, that Paul and Sarah decide to wash it down with a tequila sunri…
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The first episode of Reading for Attention is here! This week Paul and Sarah discuss Sally Rooney's latest release Beautiful World Where Are You. Widely considered as one of the first writers to really capture the 'millenial voice', Rooney skyrocketed to the top of national and international bestseller lists with her second novel Normal People. Rel…
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