In this episode, we read the opening passage from Gurnaik Johal's new novel Saraswati (2025). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/saraswati-gurnaik-johal/6331093].

Gurnaik Johal’s short story collection, We Move, won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Tata Literature Live! Prize and the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize in 2022. Saraswati, his first novel, is out on 12th June.

Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack [https://open.substack.com/pub/booksupclose/p/gurnaik-johal-saraswati?r=6s1le&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]. Follow the show on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Ep. 9. Gurnaik Johal, Saraswati

In this episode, I review Sophie Lewis' Enemy Feminisms.

These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!

You can buy Enemy Feminisms from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/enemy-feminisms-terfs-policewomen-and-girlbosses-against-liberation-sophie-lewis/7805991?ean=9798888902493].

Follow the podcast on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Book Review: Sophie Lewis, Enemy Feminisms

In this episode, we read a passage (p. 55 of the hardback) from Tawseef Khan's novel Determination (2024). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/determination-tawseef-khan/7639228?ean=9781804440902].

Tawseef Khan is a qualified immigration solicitor and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Liverpool, where he examined the fairness of the British asylum system. He is also a graduate of the creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia, where he received the Seth Donaldson Memorial Bursary. His fiction has appeared in Lighthouse and Test Signal: a Northern anthology; his non-fiction in the New York Times, The Face and Hyphen. His debut non-fiction book Muslim, Actually was published by Atlantic in 2021 and his novel Determination was published in 2024. He lives in Manchester.

Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack [https://open.substack.com/pub/booksupclose/p/tawseef-khan-determination?r=6s1le&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]. Follow the show on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

Please leave feedback here [https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ur7mk6rEMUevXdc1sJfq2-MtVOsMawJDpBA3aJ944dVUMkI4OTA3N0dBMUE2SDVJWlpaOE8zNlo4NC4u].

Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Ep. 8. Tawseef Khan, Determination 

In this episode, I review Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection (2022/5), trans. by Sophie Hughes. 

These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!

You can buy Perfection from your local bookstore, Fitzcarraldo, or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/perfection-vincenzo-latronico/7688914].

Follow the podcast on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Book Review: Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection 

In this episode, we read a passage from Amy Key's Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life (2023). Buy the book from a local independent bookshop or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/arrangements-in-blue-notes-on-love-and-making-a-life-amy-key/7523117?ean=9781529919967].

Amy Key is a writer based in London. She is the author of Arrangements in Blue (Jonathan Cape, 2023), chosen as a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, Independent, Irish Times and Granta and shortlisted by Foyles for their Non Fiction Book of the Year 2023. She is also the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe (Salt, 2013) and Isn’t Forever (Bloodaxe, 2018). Her essays have appeared in the collections At The Pond (2019) and By the River (2024) published by Daunt, as well as Granta, Vogue, The Observer, The Poetry Review, Independent and elsewhere. She writes the substack So Glad I’m Me.

Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack. Follow the show on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

Please leave feedback here [https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ur7mk6rEMUevXdc1sJfq2-MtVOsMawJDpBA3aJ944dVUMkI4OTA3N0dBMUE2SDVJWlpaOE8zNlo4NC4u].

Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Ep. 7. Amy Key, Arrangements in Blue 

In this episode, I review Anthony Passeron's Sleeping Children (2022/5). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!

You can buy Sleeping Children your local bookstore or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sleeping-children-anthony-passeron/7648869].

Follow the podcast on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Book Review: Anthony Passeron, Sleeping Children

In this episode, we read the opening of Lola Olufemi's Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (2021). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, Bookshop.org, or directly from Hajar Press [https://www.hajarpress.com/books/experiments-in-imagining-otherwise].

Dr. Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher who  completed her doctorate based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the utility of the political imagination in the textual and visual cultures of radical social movements, examining the role cultural production plays in processes of materialist resistance and collective conceptualisations of futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (2021), the forthcoming Against Literature (2026) and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective.

Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack [https://open.substack.com/pub/booksupclose/p/lola-olufemi-experiments-in-imagining?r=6s1le&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]. Follow the show on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

Please leave feedback here [https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ur7mk6rEMUevXdc1sJfq2-MtVOsMawJDpBA3aJ944dVUMkI4OTA3N0dBMUE2SDVJWlpaOE8zNlo4NC4u].

Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Ep. 6. Lola Olufemi, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise


In this episode, I review Saou Ichikawa's novel Hunchback (2023). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!

You can buy Ichikawa's novel from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hunchback-saou-ichikawa/7748975].

Follow the podcast on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Book Review: Saou Ichikawa, Hunchback

In this episode, we read the opening of Seán Hewitt's Open, Heaven (2025). Buy the novel from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/open-heaven-sean-hewitt/7724420?ean=9781787335196].

Seán Hewitt’s debut poetry collection, Tongues of Fire, received the Laurel Prize and was shortlisted for many awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. All Down Darkness Wide, his memoir, was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards and for the Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and he has collaborated with the artist Luke Edward Hall on 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World. His second collection of poetry is Rapture’s Road. Hewitt lectures at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2022, he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Open, Heaven (2025) is his first novel.

Find the transcript and more about the show on Substack [https://booksupclose.substack.com/]. Follow the show on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

Please leave feedback here [https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ur7mk6rEMUevXdc1sJfq2-MtVOsMawJDpBA3aJ944dVUMkI4OTA3N0dBMUE2SDVJWlpaOE8zNlo4NC4u].

Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Ep. 5. Seán Hewitt, Open, Heaven

In this episode, I review Torrey Peters' book Stag Dance (2025). These book reviews will drop into the feed in between interviews. You can also find the review on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already! 

You can buy Torrey Peters' book from your local bookstore or Bookshop.org [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/untitled-torrey-peters/6404957?ean=9781800810792].

Follow the podcast on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/booksupclose].

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Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd [https://www.instagram.com/chrisllloyd9/].

Book Review: Torrey Peters, Stag Dance

Books Up Close is a show for book lovers, language nerds, or anyone who wants to know how texts get made. Listen as writer and academic Chris Lloyd performs a 'close reading' of some writing with the author themselves.

Books Up Close: The Podcast