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The Curiously Specific Book Club

By: Lloyd Shepherd & Tim Wright
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  • Summary

  • Forget Downton Abbey or The Crown, we use classic novels to guide you through the Britain of today and yesterday.

    Every podcast, Lloyd & Tim – two funny book-loving blokes – take you on a walk or a road trip, using a well-known novel as the only guide.

    Great literature, amazing landscapes and general laughter guaranteed with every episode.


    Your presenters are:


    Tim Wright (r): digital writer/consultant for web, mobile, radio, TV, theatre. Half of xpt.com. Former Head of Immersive at NFTS. Web here, Twitter here.


    Lloyd Shepherd (l): author of 4 novels: The English Monster. The Poisoned Island. Savage Magic. The Detective and the Devil. Also does digital product development. Web here, Twitter here.

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Episodes
  • John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 2: hit the beach at North Foreland, Kent, in search of dastardly German spies

    John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 2: hit the beach at North Foreland, Kent, in search of dastardly German spies
    Jul 31 2023
    In Part Two of our Buchan-based adventure we switch from Scotland to the Kent coast. We’re in search of the eponymous 39 steps. But first we need to locate Trafalgar House where German secret agents are hiding out. We end up at North Foreland, between the homes of a German-hating lord and a German-loving marquess. And, yes, we did find some steps! Get early access to new episodes and bonus content

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    51 mins
  • John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 1: experience the thrill of a chase through Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

    John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 1: experience the thrill of a chase through Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland
    Jul 24 2023
    It’s an iconic moment in British literature – John Buchan’s hero Richard Hannay running across a moor with police, secret agents and an airplane all trying to hunt him down. But is it based on any kind of reality? We head for the Scottish Lowlands to find out, taking in abandoned train lines, the site of a car crash and a very remote farmhouse. Get early access to new episodes and bonus content

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    51 mins
  • Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part Two: a North Foreland discovery

    Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part Two: a North Foreland discovery
    Jul 17 2023

    We return to Ramsgate in Kent with Margot Bennett’s brilliant thriller THE WIDOW OF BATH as our only guide. The book was published in 1952, the same year as rock and roll had its birthday. We’re looking for a hat shop and a suspicous employment agency and we’re pretty confident we’ve found both.


    We date the book’s action to 1951 with some of our usual close reading, before visiting our final location. The house of the deceased, Judge Bath, is described by Bennett as being five miles from the location of the book, on a clifftop looking over a bay. If you go five miles north from Ramsgate, you find yourself at North Foreland. And here there is something else extraordinary: another house, in which a writer completed his own chase thriller 40 years before Bennett’s. And in front of that house is a set of steps that go down to the sea.


    But that’s another story. For now, we leave you with one plea: read Margot Bennett. She deserves to be far better known than she is.


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    59 mins
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