The Hatchards Podcast

On this episode, we're joined by author Kathryn Stockett to discuss her new novel, The Calamity Club, which follows a group of remarkable women as they confront the reactionary social, cultural, and economic forces that defined much of the American South during the Great Depression.

It has been 17 years since Stockett published The Help, one of the defining publishing successes of its era, and she shares with us the anxiety she felt returning to this world after writing a wildly successful, albeit controversial, literary phenomenon. She explains why, this time around, she attempted—and failed—to write a follow-up book that was less likely to become a cultural lightning rod.

For all of The Calamity Club's stifling Mississippi heat and small-town prejudice, the predominant feeling readers are left with is joy. That's because this sweeping story is leavened by the voices of two of the funniest and most fully realised characters you're likely to encounter in any book this year.

Hosted by Ryan Edgington. Produced by Lily Woods and Matt Hennessey.

On this episode, we are joined by Edward Chisholm, author of our Non-Fiction Book of the Month for May, Murder in Paris ’68. This gripping French crime saga uncovers a vast criminal conspiracy surrounding cinema icon Alain Delon, who was once accused of murdering his friend and bodyguard, Stevan Marković.

The so-called 'Marković Affair' entangled figures ranging from organised crime to President Georges Pompidou, and Chisholm draws on still-classified material and the defining films of the era to revisit a moment of glamour, corruption, and cultural change.

Hosted by Ryan Edgington. Produced by Lily Woods and Matthew Hennessey.

On this episode, we’re joined by the author of our Fiction Book of the Month for April, Jean-Noël Orengo, whose novel, intriguingly titled You Are the Führer’s Unrequited Love, is an imagined portrait of the life and lies of Albert Speer, Hitler’s closest confidant and chosen architect for Nazi Germany.

Speer, who was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, successfully transformed his public image from that of a war criminal into that of the prototypical “Good Nazi,” becoming an international celebrity and one of the most prominent historical chroniclers of the Third Reich. Now, as we approach a time when almost no living witnesses remain, Orengo’s novel asks vital questions about who gets to write history and whether it can be relied upon.

Hosted by Ryan Edgington. Produced by Lily Woods.

On this episode, we're joined by Sir Antony Beevor, the bestselling military historian behind true classics of the genre like Stalingrad and The Second World War.
His new book, Rasputin and the Downfall of the Romanovs, is a deeply researched portrait of Russia’s notorious “mad monk,” and how a barely literate peasant rose to exert extraordinary influence over the Imperial family.
In our conversation, Beevor describes a social order on the verge of extinction, with Rasputin acting as its key accelerant. Tensions mount to the point where collapse feels inevitable—not a matter of if, but when. And it’s how each of the figures in this remarkable story responds to that sense of inevitability that ultimately seals their fate.
Hosted by Ryan Edgington. Produced by Lily Woods.

On this episode, we’re joined by Julian Sancton, the investigative journalist and author of Neptune’s Fortune, which brings us into the world of 20th-century treasure hunting and the search for a Spanish galleon containing over a billion pounds’ worth of gold and silver. At the center of this story is Roger Dooley, a larger-than-life Cuban American archaeologist who dedicated his life to finding it.

Julian tells us how he gained access to this world of colourful characters, why stories of the sea continue to motivate his writing life, and how he shaped a story that combines adventure, geopolitics, and centuries of maritime history.

Hosted by Ryan Edgington.