The Rest Is History has a new spin-off podcast called The Book Club. If you listen to the former, you’ll know Dominic Sandbrook but perhaps not his producer Tabby Syrett, who has joined him as co-host for the new venture. Tom Holland had presumably nipped off early to feed the cats.

The release follows, slightly unfortunately, on the heels of a Sunday Times article in which the current crisis in sales of non-fiction is attributed in part to the boom in factual podcasts. If people are no longer buying history books because they’re ‘getting their history’ from Spotify for free, then ought we to be wary of a podcast about novels, lest we stop buying those as well?

Members of book clubs are notorious for never actually reading the book

Members of book clubs are notorious for never actually reading the book

Publishers have been warning authors about the podcast problem for years. Podcasts are denting our sales, they tell us, and on the weight of anecdotal evidence we agree, while scratching our heads over what else could be driving the decline. An email then arrives from the publisher’s publicity department with an invitation to appear on X’s podcast to........

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