STACK with Jake and Ella

***This episode contains discussion around death and bereavement - we advise listening with caution or skipping this episode if those topics wouldn’t be right for you right now***
It’s a New Year and our first STACK of the year is here. We’re a firm believer in the power of books to change lives, but which ones specifically? We’re also virtual this episode, hot off the back of seeing Hamnet and desperate to talk about it, and we’re sharing life hacks including how to afford a New Year book haul. Plus: bao buns, surprising stats and discussing whether Stephen Sondheim is a household name.
Plus - we run through the best upcoming 2026 books to add to your TBR. 

The books featured in this week’s STACK:
11.57 Solve For Happy - Mo Gawdat
14.50 Open Up - Alex Holder
18.28 East - Meera Sodha
21.06 A Heart That Works - Rob Delaney
23.56 Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
28.49 How Sondheim Can Change Your Life - Richard Schoch

Also featured:
Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell
Land - Maggie O’Farrell
Hooked - Asako Yusuki
What Am I, A Deer? - Polly Barton
Vigil - George Saunders
The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout
People In Love - Claire Daverley

STACK with Jake and Ella is a books podcast helping you cut through the noise to fall in love - and stay in love - with reading. Each fortnight, we’ll be sharing curated lists on a theme of the books that are worth your time.
Please follow us on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube. Do comment and share and if you’d like to support the podcast even further, we’d love it if you could leave us a review - it’s massively helpful. 

We are @stackpodcast on socials.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackpodcast

Please get in touch if you read any of the books from this week’s episode, or have a bookish problem for our Shelf Help section - you can literally ask us anything 

STACK with Jake and Ella is an independent podcast production.
It is produced by Jake Williams and Ella Horne.
Our theme music was created by Thomas Clarke.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve got our Santa hats on! This episode’s STACK is all cosy vibes for Christmas, New Year and the period in between, whatever that’s called. Jake and Ella create a stack containing crosswords, colours and predicting your own murder. Mysteries that are light on jeopardy, and won’t keep you up at night. And a listener question for the Shelf Help section takes an unexpected turn…

The books featured in this week’s STACK:
05.46 The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers - Samuel Burr
07.26 How To Solve Your Own Murder - Kristen Perrin
10.20 Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde
12.30 All The Colours of the Dark - Chris Whitaker
15.30 The Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz
18.35 The Hogfather - Terry Pratchett

Also featured:
Buckeye - Patrick Ryan
Wolf Hall Trilogy - Hilary Mantel
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde

STACK is a books podcast helping you cut through the noise to fall in love - and stay in love - with reading. Each fortnight, we’ll be sharing curated lists on a theme of the books that are worth your time.

Please follow us on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube. Do comment and share and if you’d like to support the podcast even further, we’d love it if you could leave us a review - it’s massively helpful. 

We are @stackpodcast on socials.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackpodcast

Please get in touch if you read any of the books from this week’s episode, or have a bookish problem for our Shelf Help section. 

STACK with Jake and Ella is an independent podcast production.
It is produced by Jake Williams and Ella Horne.
Our theme music was created by Thomas Clarke.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ella and Jake pick six tiny books that pack a weird punch, and have fun debating whether they could handle the zombie apocalypse, whether they like to know what’s going on in a book, and a man called Bigolas Dickolas.

The books featured in this week’s STACK:
3.56 Hard Copy - Fien Veldman
6.31 This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
11.10 Heatwave - Victor Jestin
14.23 It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over - Anna de Marcken
19.07 Second Best - David Foenkinos
21.50 Treacle Walker - Alan Garner

Also featured:
Impossible Creatures - Katherine Rundell
Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing - Matthew Perry
George Orwell’s 1984: An Audible Original adaptation

STACK is a books podcast helping you cut through the noise to fall in love - and stay in love - with reading. Each fortnight, we’ll be sharing curated lists on a theme of the books that are worth your time.

Please follow us on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube. Do comment and share and if you’d like to support the podcast even further, we’d love it if you could leave us a review - it’s massively helpful. 

We are @stackpodcast on socials.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackpodcast

Please get in touch if you read any of the books from this week’s episode, or have a bookish problem for our Shelf Help section. 

STACK with Jake and Ella is an independent podcast production.
It is produced by Jake Williams and Ella Horne.
Our theme music was created by Thomas Clarke.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ready for your Christmas shopping? This week’s Stack covers six crowd-pleasing books to fill anybody’s stocking. Ella and Jake discuss their own Christmas lists, getting your colours done and what on earth to buy for your dad. 

The books featured in this week’s Stack:
12.14 The Poetry Pharmacy
14.17 My Friends - Fredrik Backman
16.14 Is A River Alive? - Robert Macfarlane
18.12 Death At The White Hart - Chris Chibnall
19.40 The Little Book Of Miriam - Miriam Margoyles
22.48 The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King - Harry Trevaldwyn

Also featured:
The Wedding People - Alison Espach
Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance - Alison Espach
The Christmas Tree That Loved To Dance - Miranda Hart
All The Best For The Future - Greg James
Buckeye - Patrick Ryan 
Alchemised - SenLinYu
The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson
The Safekeep - Yael van der Wouden

The Stack is a books podcast helping you cut through the noise to fall in love - and stay in love - with reading. Each fortnight, we’ll be sharing curated lists on a theme of the books that are worth your time.

Please follow us on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube. Do comment and share and if you’d like to support the podcast even further, we’d love it if you could leave us a review - it’s massively helpful. 

We are @stackpodcast on socials.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackpodcast

Please get in touch if you read any of the books from this week’s episode, or have a bookish problem for our Shelf Help section. 

STACK with Jake and Ella is an independent podcast production.
It is produced by Jake Williams and Ella Horne.
Our theme music was created by Thomas Clarke. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s STACK is all about the girls and the gays. Jake and Ella cover books that speak to their identities, others that help them to understand other perspectives and Ella reads The Lamb after Jake’s review last week.

The books featured in this week’s STACK:
04.45 Amateur - Thomas Page McBee
09.05 The Rachel Incident - Caroline O’Donoghue
12.23 Period Power - Maisie Hill
16.05 I Leave It Up To You - Jinwoo Chong
17.50  A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske
21.05 A Home At The End of the World - Michael Cunningham 

Also featured:
The Lamb - Lucy Rose
Amazing Grace Adams - Fran Littlewood
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
The Binding - Bridget Collins

The Stack is a books podcast helping you cut through the noise to fall in love - and stay in love - with reading. Each fortnight, we’ll be sharing curated lists on a theme of the books that are worth your time.

Please follow us on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube. Do comment and share and if you’d like to support the podcast even further, we’d love it if you could leave us a review - it’s massively helpful. 

We are @stackpodcast on socials.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackpodcast

Please get in touch if you read any of the books from this week’s episode, or have a bookish problem for our Shelf Help section. 

STACK is an independent podcast production.
It is produced by Jake Williams and Ella Horne.
Our theme music was created by Thomas Clarke.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices