The Curiously Specific Book Club

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

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:00:51 GMT

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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 12:00:19 GMT

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.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 12:00:28 GMT

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.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part One: Shady goings-on in Ramsgate

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 12:00:05 GMT

A young man with a questionable background is sitting in a small hotel by an unnamed harbour in England. He is ostensibly writing a review. Behind him he hears a party of unseen people come into the hotel restaurant. He knows their voices. They are people from his past. One of them, he had a love affair with. She is now married to a judge. The judge’s name is Bath.

So begins Margot Bennett’s perfectly calibrated 1952 thriller THE WIDOW OF BATH. But where is this strange hotel? All Bennett tells us directly is that this is ‘not Bournemouth.’ Thankfully, there are other clues – more than enough for us to get our teeth into.

And so we take you to Ramsgate on the Kent coast, our candidate for the book’s location. We discover a past filled with suspicious waiters, terrible food, and eternal controversies about immigration. When it comes to immigration, we find nothing much has changed.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Geoffrey Household’s ROGUE MALE Part 2: pursuit across Dorset – tracking down a secret holloway-hideaway

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 12:00:06 GMT

In Part Two we get out of town and attempt to bury ourselves in the Dorset countryside. We start at Dorchester, track down the narrator’s fake hideaway in the Sydling valley and then search for the famous ‘holloway’ where our hero tries to evade his pursuers. Is it a real place? Listen now to find out.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Geoffrey Household’s ROGUE MALE Part 1: pursuit across London – Hurlingham steps to the Aldwych tube

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 12:00:34 GMT

We take the classic 1939 thriller out for ride, starting precisely where the book’s hard-boiled narrator makes land in London at Hurlingham. We track down his hotel off the Cromwell Road and then re-enact a tense chase around Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Holborn, ending in a (fictional) death at a defunct London Underground station.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AA Milne’s WHEN WE WE VERY YOUNG Part 2: the ghost of a golf course, and a swan called Pooh

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 12:00:38 GMT

It’s the second part of our adventure with AA Milne’s astonishingly popular book of verse for children, WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG. And, like Milne himself often was, we’re back on a golf course – or at least, we’re in where an Addington golf course used to be, and we’re wondering if Milne played there. We also visit somewhere rather special – Decoy Cottage in Sussex, where Christopher Robin spent his first handful of summers, and where there was a swan on the pond called Pooh. All of which is guiding us towards the inevitable – the birthplace of Winnie the Pooh, Cotchford Farm in East Sussex, where we inevitably leave our car in the Pooh Car Park, throw sticks off the Pooh sticks bridge, and mourn the unlikely death of a global rock superstar in the same garden where Christopher Robin played.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AA Milne’s WHEN WE VERY YOUNG Part 1: down to Buckingham Palace with Alice

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 12:00:05 GMT

AA Milne’s book of poetry for children, WHEN WE VERY YOUNG, was stupefyingly successful – it may be the most successful volume of poetry ever published. In the first part of our adventure, we discover bears everywhere: waiting for us to step on cracks in the pavement outside the Chelsea home where AA Milne lived with his wife Daphne and, of course, his son Christopher Robin; bearskins on guards outside Buckingham Palace; and Winnie the bear herself, a Canadian visitor to London Zoo, whose name inspired a smaller, more fictional bear. We end the episode by asking, quite seriously: when Mother went down to the end of the town, where on earth did she go?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice Oswald’s DART Part 2: from Buckfast Abbey to the Mew Stone via a derelict dairy and a boatyard

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 12:00:53 GMT

In Part Two of our adventures along the River Dart, we wonder whether the poet Alice Oswald genuinely walked the whole of the river from source to sea, thus producing her magnificent 2002 work ‘Dart’. We definitely believe she sat by the Totnes weir and probably saw seals on the Mew Stone. But did she really note down the names of all those boats in the many mooring sites along the way?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice Oswald’s DART Part 1: Dartmoor to Buckfastleigh on foot, in a car – and on a steam train!

Mon, 29 May 2023 12:00:03 GMT

Alice Oswald’s long poem ‘Dart’ provides a journey in verse from the source of the River Dart all the way to the sea. We take the same journey using the poem as our guide. We hope to unlock our inner poets and verify all the locations mentioned in ‘Dart’. We certainly had a lovely day out - on the moor and on a steam train!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edward Thomas’s IN PURSUIT OF SPRING Part Two: From Rudge to the Quantocks

Mon, 22 May 2023 12:00:50 GMT

We’re back with the second part of our journey with Edward Thomas’s IN PURSUIT OF SPRING, the book which turned this frustrated critic and essayist into a major poet, with the advice and assistance of his great friend Robert Frost. In this episode we continue our journey into Somerset, following the exact route that Thomas took. On the way we visit Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s house in Nether Stowey, look out over the Bristol Channel at Kilve, and take in the immensity of the views from Cothelstone Hill, where Thomas himself finished his journey.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edward Thomas’s IN PURSUIT OF SPRING Part One: From Clapham to Salisbury

Mon, 15 May 2023 12:00:59 GMT

In 1913, Edward Thomas had not yet written a line of poetry, but on Good Friday he set off on a bicycle journey from his parents’ home in south London to the Quantock Hills of Somerset. He intended to write a book, the kind of ‘country notes’ affair he had turned his hand to before, but what resulted was something extraordinary – a book-length piece of prose which, at times, reads like verse. We follow the route he took, beginning in Clapham and discovering how much some of the places he rode through have changed, and how little others. On the way, we read Thomas’s most famous poem, ‘Adlestrop’, on a railway station, hear our first chiffchaff, and find the special place which Thomas described with such power that his friend Robert Frost told him he was, in fact, already a poet.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nell Dunn’s UP THE JUNCTION Part 2: drill rap, sweets and trains on the Winstanley Estate, Battersea

Mon, 08 May 2023 12:00:44 GMT

We’re using Nell Dunn’s ‘Up The Junction’ to guide us through the notorious York & Winstanley estate in Battersea. We’re hoping to locate an old sweet factory and Nell Dunn’s house – and then make it safely out to the train station.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nell Dunn’s UP THE JUNCTION Part 1: from glamorous Chelsea to industrial Battersea

Mon, 01 May 2023 12:00:24 GMT

In 1959, Nell Dunn gave up her privileged lifestyle to live in smelly, poverty-stricken North Battersea. We use her book ‘Up The Junction’ to navigate our way into her world and through the Battersea of today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hanif Kureishi’s THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA Part Two: Go West, Young Man

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 12:00:59 GMT

For part two of our adventure with Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 masterpiece THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA we leave South London behind us and head for more exotic climes – viz, West Kensington and Hammersmith in the west of the city. We find the flat where Karim, his father the Buddha, and Eva move into a flat above Thin Lizzy’s tour manager, just round the corner from where Karim sees a certain punk band with a red-haired singer in 1976. Following Karim’s career in experimental theatre we take ourself to Riverside Studios, haunt of Daleks and challenging dramatists. We find the autobiographical isn’t far from Kureishi’s novel, and we discuss 1990, the year of the book’s publication and the fall of Thatcher.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hanif Kureishi’s THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA Part One: From Bromley to Penge

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 12:00:19 GMT

For the second of our trilogy of episodes featuring books that came up from the depths of South London, we’re taking a walk with Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 masterpiece THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA. We begin in Bromley, birthplace and home of the book’s hero Karim (aka Creamy) and his father, the eponymous Buddha – and also the childhood home of none other than David Bowie, whose life weaves in and out of the plot as we head north to Beckenham, where Karim has his first sexual encounter and Bowie played his first festival. Then it’s north again, to Penge, where Karim’s ‘uncle’ keeps a store next to a library. Along the way we discuss Karim, Kureishi and Bowie’s school, how Bowie discovered music opposite where Karim discovered tea, and the South Asian experience of living in South London in the 1970s.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angela Carter’s WISE CHILDREN Part 2: drinking, dancing & writing in Clapham, London

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 12:00:10 GMT

In Part Two, we continue to map out the South London world of ‘Wise Children’’s fictional characters. We find a haberdashers on Clapham High Street, above which Dora and Nora might have learned to dance.

We stop in at the Coach and Horses pub on Acre Lane - Dora’s local. And we visit Angela Carter’s house in Clapham where this magnificent tale of 20th century show business folk was dreamed up.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angela Carter’s WISE CHILDREN Part 1: the lost theatres, music halls & cinemas of South London

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 12:00:58 GMT

This magical novel about two ageing ‘hoofers’ of London SW2 is a great excuse to get out into Lambeth, South London and hunt down the location of amazing old theatres like the massive Kennington Theatre and the Brixton Empress.

We start at one of the great homes of Shakespeare performance in South London – The Old Vic. And end up in a terraced street off Brixton Hill, where dozens of actors, entertainers, comedians and acrobats would have lived back in the day.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ruth Rendell’s FROM DOON WITH DEATH Part Two: The body in the woods

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 12:00:05 GMT

In part two, we persist in our search for Midhurst locations that match the events in Ruth Rendell’s first novel, FROM DOON WITH DEATH. We become increasingly bogged down, unable to make the book match the real world. So we try another approach. Could Kingsmarkham actually be somewhere else? Is Rendell playing games with us? Could she actually be thinking about somewhere a lot closer to home?

But having almost given up hope of finding any authentic locations, we go hunting for the wood in which the body of Mrs Parsons is dumped. Here, things are much more promising – and what is more, we manage to find a Royal connection. A cheeky one, no doubt, but a connection is a connection.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ruth Rendell’s FROM DOON WITH DEATH Part One: Searching for Kingsmarkham

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 13:00:21 GMT

We’re off on our next adventure, and this time our guide is Ruth Rendell, the grandest of literary detective dames and inventor of the town of Kingsmarkham, and its watchful Chief Inspector Wexford. We start where Rendell started – with her very first book, FROM DOON WITH DEATH, published in 1964. We’re introduced to Wexford and a cast of local characters in the Sussex town of Kingsmarkham. And we take Rendell’s word on trust because she herself tells us, in the afterword to the book, that Kingsmarkham is ‘based on’ Midhurst.

But when we get to Midhurst, we are troubled by the lack of similarities with this pleasant little town nestled in the South Downs National Park, and Rendell’s creation. Could she be having us on? To what extent could Midhurst possibly be Kingsmarkham? For instance - where is the train station? We begin to worry…..

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dorothy L Sayers’s THE NINE TAILORS Part 2: inspecting drains and viewing sluices in the soggy Fens

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 13:00:56 GMT

In Part Two of our adventure in the Fens, we’re using a classic Lord Peter Wimsey novel to navigate our way around the fiendishly complex network of drains and sluices that prevent this part of the UK from being permanently underwater.

We visit the town of Ramsey – once an island – and take in the ancient Forty Foot Drain. We admire the great wonder of engineering that is the Denver Sluice, but fail to understand how it works. Instead, we repair to March for one final church visit.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dorothy L Sayers’s THE NINE TAILORS Part 1: motoring across the Fens in search of bellringers

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 13:00:44 GMT

We’re taking a classic Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery novel for a drive out onto the Great Level. We’re looking for the fictional village of Fenchurch St Paul, with its enormous church tower and gang of dedicated bell-ringers.

You’ll find us at Bluntisham, Upwell and Christchurch in Cambridgeshire, seeking out a suitable church, preferably with a host of wooden angels in the ceiling (as in the book). All this plus a potted history of bell-ringing - and a car crash too. Hell’s bells!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agatha Christie’s THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD Part Two – a young writer’s imagination

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 13:00:19 GMT

For part two of our adventure with Agatha Christie’s sixth novel THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD we hunt out her sister’s home in Cheadle, the rather grand Abney Hall. Was it the model for Roger Ackroyd’s Fernly Park? Is there a pond and can you hear people talking from the path above it? And where might a doctor hide a murder suspect? We’ve got answers to all these questions, and if you’re a Christie fan you might be surprised at what we found – not least by our discovery of a book which claims that the biggest mystery of all is not revealed in the book. Whodunnit? Perhaps not who you think!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agatha Christie’s THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD Part One – Poirot’s house and Poirot’s marrows

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 13:00:14 GMT

We’re taking the bestselling novelist in the world EVER out for a walk. In Agatha Christie’s sixth novel THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD her Belgian hero has retired (what?) to the town of King’s Abbot, near the fictional town of Cranchester. What can Christie have had in mind as the model for Poirot’s bolthole? We think we know, and we make the case that Hercule Poirot was growing marrows in the town of Cheadle in Cheshire. We even think we’ve found his house! But how can he have retired so early in Christie’s career?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Aaronovitch‘s RIVERS OF LONDON Part 2: from Mister Punch at Covent Garden to Old Mother Thames at Wapping

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:00:00 GMT

In Part Two of our riverine excursion guided by the first book in Ben Aaronovitch’s cult series, we start away from the river at Covent Garden, where the hero of the novel – Peter Grant – meets his first ghost and performs a necromantic ritual. We hang out at the ‘Actor’s Church’ then go in search of a gastropub. We’re also on a quest to find the home of English magic – the Folly – in Russell Square – and also Mama Thames’s house in Wapping.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Aaronovitch‘s RIVERS OF LONDON Part 1: following the Thames from source to outer London

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 13:00:11 GMT

We’re using the first novel in this cult series to navigate a route along the Thames tracking down various locations where detective Peter Grant encounters river nymphs, trolls and Old Father Thames. We start at the alleged source of the Thames, take in an ancient and important site at Runnymede, fail to swim in the Oxley River and end up at the Hammerton Ferry – an unusual place for fictional river spirits to decide to have a massive fight.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Ackroyd’s HAWKSMOOR Part Two

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 13:00:39 GMT

In part two of our adventure with Peter Ackroyd’s HAWKSMOOR, we finish our circuit of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s churches, completing a sigil on the face of London which, according to Tim’s design, will force Lloyd to reveal his real Satanic nature. We also discover the likely location for the fictional church of St Hugh’s, which now holds the dark evils of high international finance. We discuss Iain Sinclair and psychogeography, and the history of Satanism. We finish at St Alfege’s in Greenwich, where a black cat crosses our path and demons, disappointingly, fail to be summoned!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Ackroyd’s HAWKSMOOR Part One

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:00:02 GMT

After NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman, we’re back with another book that manifests London in mysterious and unsettling ways. Peter Ackroyd’s HAWKSMOOR tells the tale of Nicholas Dyer, a fictional architect of the early 18th century who has been charged with building seven new churches but has his own sinister, not to say Satanic purposes. In Part One we begin at Scotland Yard in Whitehall, scene of Nicholas Dyer’s studio and the original home of the Metropolitan Police. From there we take in three of the real Nicholas Hawksmoor’s churches, while discussing the lives of Peter Ackroyd and Hawksmoor, as well as the quite extraordinarily bleak year of the book’s publication, 1985.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere Part Two: discovering an ancient wall in the Barbican, plus many other London underground secrets

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 13:00:57 GMT

In Neil Gaiman’s ‘Neverwhere’, a key character – the Marquis de Carabas – lies dead atop London Wall. But where is London Wall? We not only find it, but we find a second bit of it, unknown to most people, in an underground car park. We have a grim talk about suicide and masonic murder at Blackfriars tube station, and then head back to Soho in search of the last portal mentioned in the book – a blank brick wall off Great Windmill Street.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere Part One: wandering across London – from Albert Bridge to Soho – in search of portals to the underworld

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 13:00:53 GMT

Neil Gaiman’s famous London fantasy novel provides us with an unusual route across London. We start at Albert Bridge, the supposed entrance to the mythical ‘Knight’s Bridge’. We grab a coffee at Harrods, home of a Neverwhere market. Tim surprises Lloyd with the Down Street underground station – and Tim surprises himself by discovering that his 1990s workplace was actually a portal to Neverwhere.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now That's Curiously Specific Part Two: Lloyd's Festive Five

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:00:34 GMT

It's Lloyd's turn to pick his five best moments from Series 1 and 2 of the Curiously Specific Book Club podcast. His picks take us deep into Mick Herron's commute to work in SLOW HORSES; the disappearing landscapes of Barry Hines's A KESTREL FOR A KNAVE; Nazis parachuting onto a Norfolk beach (and possibly drowning in the high tide!) in THE EAGLE HAS LANDED; and finally, and in Lloyd's case most memorably, the extraordinary discovery of Oldway Lane in THE DARK IS RISING.

These are our special Christmas episodes to mark the end of our second series. Join us in January for Series 3, when we discover weird goings on in a very strange-seeming London Town.....

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now That’s Curiously Specific Part One: Tim’s Festive Five

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 13:00:53 GMT

A very merry and curiously specific Christmas to one and all! May it happen as it should, on the 25th December and with everyone gathered in exactly the right place.

Talking of which, here is Tim’s festive selection of excerpts from Series 1 and 2 – key moments when we managed to be curiously specific about a location or a date or both.

Here you can get a strong sense of what our book-related outdoor adventures are all about.

Excerpts include a trespass across a posh Kent golf course in search of Stig’s Dump, a Len Deighton-related psychic attack on a Soho coffee bar and a trip to a bleak and haunting part of the Lincolnshire coast in search of The Woman in Black’

Support us on Patreon and you can get early access to Lloyd’s Festive Five – his personal favourite podcast moments from across two seasons - with yet more highlights from the Curiously Specific library. See you for more adventures in 2023.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mayor of Casterbridge Part Two: A skimmity ride beyond the city walls

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 13:00:11 GMT

In part two of our adventure with The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy we walk out of Dorchester over two bridges and down to a weir, where Michael Henchard can be found considering ending it all and seeing what appears to be a body floating down the Frome. Behind him and up on a hill we can imagine his creator looking down on to the marshy fields beyond Dorchester, because this is where Hardy built his home, called Max Gate, where he wrote the Mayor of Casterbridge and where, some forty years later, he died. We tell the extraordinary story of Hardy’s funerals (yes, funerals), and consider whether or not he is Curiously Specific about dates and locations.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mayor of Casterbridge Part One: Is it Casterbridge? Or is it Dorchester?

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 13:01:08 GMT

We’ve reached the 15th book of our second series of The Curiously Specific Book Club, and it’s one of the most famous books in English publishing history: Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in the fictional town of Casterbridge in the just-as-fictional county of Wessex, it’s a finely-wrought depiction of real people in real places; country-folk at the dawn of modernity in the Dorset county town of Dorchester, about to undergo wild expansion with the arrival of the railways and the professional classes. What’s more, the town has gone through a second change, because right on its western edge a new ‘fictional’ place has sprung up: King Charles’s fantastical experiment in town-planning, the weird zone that is Poundbury. What on earth would former architect Thomas Hardy have made of it?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Part Two: completing a sunny circular walk around Manderley/Menabilly

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:00:29 GMT

We’re halfway through a walk around the edge of the Menabilly estate in Cornwall, where Daphne Du Maurier lived for many years. We’re trying to work out how closely Menabilly aligns with the fictional house of Manderley, as featured in ‘Rebecca’

We find a gatehouse and driveway on the west side, then repair to the local pub to consider how reliable Daphne Du M might be as a narrator. Finally we walk into the woods of Menabilly to the north and come across a lovely surprise – a little bit of the Manderley dreamspace surviving in the real world!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Part One: we’re off to Fowey in Cornwall in search of Manderley

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:00:20 GMT

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

We’re off to Cornwall to see if the dream-house of Manderley, as featured in Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, could ever be a real place.

We start off in Lostwithiel, a town where we think Rebecca’s inquest could’ve taken place. We move to Fowey, the nearest village to the grand house of Menabilly, Daphne du M’s home for many years. From there we start a hike along the Coastal Path ending up at Polridmouth Bay where Rebecca meets her end.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Remains of the Day Part Two: what the hell are we doing on Dartmoor?

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 12:00:47 GMT

In part two of our adventure with Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, we have some questions, and make an apology. Our questions include: what the hell are we doing on Dartmoor? And what happened to Day Five? Our apology follows a discovery made thanks to Ship's Dog. We end on the remains of a pier at the remains of the day, pondering on the book's closing pages, and wondering what really happened to Stevens the butler as his melancholy journey came to an end.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Remains of the Day Part One: a repressed butler drives to the West

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 12:00:21 GMT

We’re taking our first Nobel prize winner out for a walk! Actually, it’s more of a drive, as Kazuo Ishiguro’s unforgettable creation, the butler Stevens, drives his boss’s Ford down the backroads from Oxfordshire to Cornwall. In part one we ask where exactly Oxfordshire ends and Berkshire begins (clue: it isn’t where Ishiguro thinks it is); discover another epic bench; spend a night in Salisbury; and hang out at a pond near Mere. But why no Stonehenge, Mr Stevens?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life After Life Part Two: swanky Kensington pads and WW2 Soho drinking dens

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 12:00:35 GMT

We start Part Two in one of the ritziest parts of London – Holland Park – where both Ursula and her charismatic aunt Izzie from Kate Atkinson’s ‘Life After Life’ are meant to live (alongside Michael Powell and Michael Winner it seems).

We scurry off quickly to Soho in search of pubs and clubs featured in the novel, trying to avoid getting drunk or falling downstairs.

This is the free version of the podcast. If you want to hear all episodes as soon as they're available, and without ads, check us out on Patreon.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life After Life Part One: exploring the Buckinghamshire stockbroker belt

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:00:57 GMT

We’re off in search of Fox Corner, the family home of the Todds, as featured heavily in Kate Atkinson’s time-twisting bestseller ‘Life After Life’. Is Fox Corner a real place or just made up? Or could it be a bit of both? If you want get hear all episodes as soon as they're available, and without ads, check us out on Patreon.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Night Watch Part Two: a walk through a City of London air raid

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:00:21 GMT

We’re back with part two of our adventure with The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters, an extraordinary novel of romantic accident and passionate love against the backdrop of the Blitz and Baby Blitz in Second World War London. In this episode we follow the extraordinary walk taken by two of the book’s protagonists, Julia and Helen, as they walk across the City of London during an air raid. It’s a landscape of doomed churches and hidden alleyways, now loomed over by gargantuan office blocks. We doff our caps to the intelligence and diligence of Sarah Waters, whose research chops are staggering, and we also uncover the hidden history of the WW2 London Auxiliary Ambulance Service, which was staffed almost entirely by women.

This is the free version of the podcast, with ads. If you want to listen without ads, and get all episodes as soon as they’re available, search for ‘Curiously Specific’ on patreon.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Night Watch Part One: ‘conchies’, air raids and hidden love

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:00:06 GMT

We’re back, with our second novel set in the Second World War. This time, it’s The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, a passionate and intricate story of doomed love affairs among the falling bombs of the Blitz and the Baby Blitz. In part one we visit Lavender Hill, Wormwood Scrubs and the tall Georgian manor houses of Marylebone, as we make our way to a bombed-out mews off Rathbone Place. Along the way we discover the difficult history of conscientious objection, and the odd decision to allow model aeroplanes to fly near the walls of Wormwood Scrubs prison.

This is the free version of the podcast, with ads. If you want to listen without ads, and get all episodes as soon as they’re available, search for ‘Curiously Specific’ on patreon.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crooked Heart Part Two: a wartime wander in North London

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 12:00:17 GMT

We’ve come down the Thameslink trainline from St Albans, got off at Kentish Town and made our way to Hampstead Heath. We’re attempting to track down all the key places mentioned in Lissa Evans’s popular WW2 novel. But she is proving to be tricky.

Yes, the Vale of Health is a real place and, thanks to Lloyd’s excellent sleuthing, we find where a bomb dropped on the fictional Mafeking Road. But there’s a big question mark around where the author thinks Hornsey might begin and end. Does she qualify as a bona fide ‘Curiously Specific ‘ writer?

If you want to listen without ads, and get all new episodes as soon as they're ready, search 'Curiously Specific Book Club' on patreon.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crooked Heart Part One: join us on an evacuation to St Albans

Mon, 05 Sep 2022 12:00:15 GMT

Pack up your suitcase, write your name on a label and tie it to your coat – we’re all being evacuated to St Albans to take Lissa Evans’s popular WW2 novel for a walk.

We’re looking for the house where the main characters live, said to be near a local scrapyard. Quite why we end up sitting in an pre-Tudor nunnery and talking about a nudist colony is anyone’s guess.

If you want to listen without ads, and get all new episodes as soon as they're ready, search 'Curiously Specific Book Club' on patreon.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get Carter Part Two: The quarry and the Humber

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 12:00:43 GMT

In part two of our Get Carter adventure, we discover another Scunthorpe – green, pleasant, well-heeled – as try and locate Kinnear’s Casino and the quarry where Jack’s brother died. Then we head 10 miles north to the abandoned brickyards of the Humber estuary, where Jack finally runs his quarry to ground. In the shadow of the bridge we wonder: where are the bodies? Are they perhaps still there?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get Carter Part One: Welcome to Scunthorpe

Mon, 08 Aug 2022 12:00:13 GMT

We’re taking a book out into the wild which you might know better by its film version: Get Carter, by Ted Lewis. Originally published as Jack’s Return Home, this tight, dirty, hard and mean book is as sharp as a switchblade and as cold as the dirty winter streets of Lincolnshire. We travel to Scunthorpe, the book’s location, and find a town on its knees, the great steelworks which made its fortune a fraction of their former size, but still pumping out steam and smoke over the crumbling streets.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Kestrel for a Knave Part Two: getting lost

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 12:00:26 GMT

In Part Two of our attempt to use ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ as our guide through the real world, we track down the school where a lot of the book’s action takes place. We talk warmly about Brian Glover, the man who steals the famous football scene in the movie ‘Kes’.

We also find a fish and chip shop and the abandoned cinema Billy breaks into near the end of the book. But tracking down specifically where Billy might have lived proves to be a mighty challenge that sends both Lloyd and Tim slightly mad (in different ways).

To listen to the podcast without ads, and to get immediate access to new episodes, search for us on Patreon!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Kestrel for a Knave Part One: to Barnsley and Hoyland Common

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 12:00:01 GMT

Forget the film ‘Kes’ (hard to do we know). Let’s take the book that inspired the movie out for a walk. We’re off to Hoyland Common, near Barnsley in Yorkshire, in search of locations from the novel ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’.

In Part One, we enquire about books on falconry at Barnsley Library. We seek out Monastery Farm where Billy Casper finds (aka steals) his kestrel. But then we start to get lost, thanks chiefly to the massive Hoyland redevelopment plan that is turning the world of ‘Kes’ into one almighty building site. And not a coal mine to be seen anywhere.

To listen to this podcast without ads, and to get immediate access to new episodes, check us out on Patreon!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cold Water Part Two: a walk in search of Manchester (and Salford) bars

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 12:00:42 GMT

Taking Gwendoline Riley’s exquisitely concise novel for a walk around Manchester, we’re drawn across Piccadilly Gardens, through the Arndale Centre, across to a Salford pub and then back and round to the Central Library and the canal. We marvel at how rapidly Manchester keeps changing – old buildings demolished, new ones thrown up in their place. We lament the passing of all of George Best’s many pubs and clubs. We celebrate our own memories of 90s Madchester and pay tribute to Riley’s acute snapshot of the Manchester of the next generation – dour, damp and semi-derelict, and yet resilient, wry and poetic.

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cold Water Part One: a drive from Macclesfield to central Manchester

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 12:00:00 GMT

This small gem of novel is a great way to introduce yourself to the world of early-noughties Manchester. In Part One we journey from Ian Curtis’s Macclesfield memorial stone to a basement bar somewhere between Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly. For Lloyd this is a bit of a homecoming. For Tim it’s a chance to practise his John Copper Clark and Mark E Smith impressions. For both men, it’s a fantastic introduction to the writer Gwendoline Riley’s world of love and loss, clowns and bullies, drunks and troubadours. And endless rain.

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Rats Part Two: Poplar and the Regent’s Canal

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 12:00:08 GMT

In part two of our adventure with James Herbert’s The Rats we discover how much the East End has changed, and how much it stays the same. The Regent’s Canal is a crumbling, abandoned ruin in Herbert’s book - today, it’s a polite playground for joggers and cyclists. But cheap tower blocks still loom over the pleasure seekers, and unchecked development has us asking: is this what Eastenders really want? And we find that rats have survived the changes. In fact, they are thriving. And their numbers are growing…

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Rats Part One: Whitechapel to Stepney

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Fancy a trip into the dark heart of London’s East End? A place of racist killings, crumbling housing, and striking schoolchildren? We’ve got an unexpected guide for you: James Herbert’s 1974 splatterpunk debut, The Rats. Don’t worry - we won’t be reading the really gory parts. But we will be using the book to navigate the 1970s East End - and it turns out that Herbert’s book has as much social history as horror excess. Even if Herbert was not always aware of it. If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dracula Part Two: Gunpowder, graves and insanity

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 12:00:44 GMT

This is the second part of our adventure with Bram Stoker’s epic chiller Dracula. Having travelled south from Whitby, we find ourselves in Purfleet, Stoker’s imaginative location for the estate of Carfax and Jack Seward’s asylum. We then head to Piccadilly to pick a virtual fight with the online Stoker cognoscenti over the location of Dracula’s London pad. We end in a graveyard in Hampstead, discussing sunsets and decapitations under the eyes of owls and bats.

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dracula Part One: Sea and ships, graves and benches

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 12:00:08 GMT

We’re taking on a book which is as much a myth as it is a novel: Bram Stoker’s 1897 chiller, Dracula. Like Stoker’s eponymous neck-botherer, we find ourselves washed up in Whitby, one of the most theatrical settings we’ve ever seen for a book. We hunt down the bench where the Count attacks poor Lucy Westenra, and stand on the beach where his ship crashes into the shore of England. We discuss goths and sleepwalking and wonder why it is, exactly, that anyone would ask where they could find Dracula’s grave?

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Woman in Black Part Two: The flat lands

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 12:00:44 GMT

This is the second part of our adventure with Susan Hill’s classic chiller The Woman in Black. In our ongoing hunt for places which could have inspired the fictional locations of Crythin Gifford and Eel Marsh House we find ourselves in Lincolnshire, where the land merges into the sea seemingly without interruption, where old rock stars haunt interesting market towns, and where Marconi dreamed of talking to the dead. Tim tries to get Lloyd to walk through an abandoned railway tunnel, without success, and we salute Hill’s masterful messing with her readers’ heads.

If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Woman in Black Part One: Yorkshire hauntings

Mon, 30 May 2022 12:00:41 GMT

We’re taking Susan Hill’s classic chiller The Woman in Black out for an adventure. It isn’t easy, because the market town of Crythin Gifford and the scary old Eel Marsh House are not real places. But what if they were constructed from real memories, and reminiscent of real places? In part one of our latest episode we check out some likely spots in Yorkshire, and Tim tries to scare Lloyd with the tale of a Norman princess and the church she haunts. He is more successful than he planned for. If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Day of the Triffids Part Two: Escape to Sussex

Mon, 23 May 2022 12:00:05 GMT

In part 2 of our Day of the Triffids adventure, we follow Bill Masen as he leaves London and heads down into Sussex, on the trail of the woman he finds himself in love with. We discover John Wyndham’s house in the countryside, and travel the Wyndham Way, our name for the road which winds along below the South Downs, with Wyndham’s school and home at one end, and Bill Masen’s refuge at the other. On the way we speculate as to when the book is set, and discover the dark history of 20th century seed manipulation. If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Day of the Triffids Part One: Darkness falls on London!

Mon, 16 May 2022 12:00:57 GMT

We’re back in London, discovering the places and context for John Wyndham’s legendary dystopian tale The Day of the Triffids. Our hero, Bill Masen, has woken up in a London hospital to a world in which everything has changed - almost everyone has become blind overnight, and the plants which Bill helped to breed, the triffids, have begun to prey on the newly vulnerable humans. But where is the hospital Bill wakes up in? And where does he end up taking shelter in central London? And why do pubs play such an important role? If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Riddley Walker Part Two

Wed, 04 May 2022 12:00:44 GMT

In part two of our Riddley Walker adventure, we follow Riddley down from How Fents to Widders Dump, and then along the line of the old railway to Rose and Power. On the way we learn about Russell Hoban’s interest in shamanism and the occult, and speculate on whether he ever met the French alchemist Fulcanelli. We finish in Fork Stoan, known to us today as Folkestone, and try and figure out just where the Power Place might have been that Riddley discovers on the outskirts of the town. If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’ve available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Riddley Walker Part One

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 12:00:17 GMT

We’re heading back to Kent! This time we’re having an adventure with Russell Hoban’s magnificent dystopian fable Riddley Walker. Set two thousand years in the future and based entirely in north Kent, the novel tells the story of a 12 year old boy and his adventures wondering a strange post-nuclear landscape, where towns have odd new names that echo the past, and where language has shifted and morphed into extraordinary new shapes. But how close is the book to the landscapes it describes? If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’ve available, subscribe to our Patreon page.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The War of the Worlds Part Two

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 13:00:27 GMT

In part two, we move down the Wey river and on to the Thames at Shepperton, the site of a destructive battle between the British Army and the Martians. The tower of Shepperton church is supposedly seen from the south bank of the river and is reduced to a pile of rubble. If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’ve available, subscribe to our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The War of the Worlds Part One

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 12:31:35 GMT

We’re kicking off Series 2 with The War of the Worlds by H G Wells – the classic tale of Martian invasion that spawned radio shows, movies, musicals and even an ‘immersive’ experience. But where is the original book set? If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’ve available, subscribe to our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Track down Smiley's Circus in 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy': S1 Ep15

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 11:38:59 GMT

Lloyd and Tim take on the 'holy scripture' of spy novels, John Le Carré's classic tale of 1970s Cold War intrigue and betrayal; the book that established George Smiley as one of the all-time great fictional characters - 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.

Our mission at the 'CuSpec' Book Club is to road test works of fiction that appear to be curiously specific about dates and locations. We go to the places mentioned and see if descriptions are accurate, journey times credible, dates and days all in order. Along the way, we learn things about the book and its author.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Practise being a spy in Noughties London in 'Slow Horses': S1 Ep14

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:57:33 GMT

‘Lamb’s been banished. Where’ve they sent him? Somewhere awful? Bad as it gets. God, not Slough? Might as well be.’

In the middle of the third Covid-19 lockdown, Lloyd and Tim get together virtually for a Zoom around London’s Aldersgate Street and key points north and west of Slough House, the headquarters for Mick Herron’s titular Slow Horses. They spy on Slough House itself, uncovering countless off-the-shelf companies which might be fronts for unseen agents, but probably aren’t, not to mention watchful owls which might be hints of a conspiracy or might just be there to scare off the pigeons.

Mick Herron’s somewhat spooky prescience about the course of British politics over the last decade is put to the test, and hats are doffed. Finally, the inevitable argument about dating ensues, with a vicious disagreement over which particular England qualifying game the book is referring to, and an unwelcome reminder of the fleeting electoral successes of the British National Party.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore swinging 60s Soho with 'The Ipcress File': S1 Ep13

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 12:09:29 GMT

‘A plan to brain-wash the entire framework of the nation,’ said Jean, over the coffee and croissants. ‘It’s hardly credible.’

After a long hiatus, Tim and Lloyd are back with the (unlucky-for-some) 13th Curiously Specific Book Club podcast. They start with something that comes easy to them both – a leisurely stroll around Soho. Who knew Len Deighton’s classic 1962 spy novel The Ipcress File was the perfect excuse for a long lunch and a general loaf?

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover the seamier side of 1980s Brighton & Hove with 'Dirty Weekend': S1 Ep12

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 08:00:14 GMT

“It began that summer, a hot and sticky summer that made the air shimmer and the walls melt.”

We’re back in Brighton, for the third in our trilogy of books set in Southern England’s biggest seaside resort. The book we’re taking for a walk this time is a tale of bloody revenge set against a 1980s backdrop of shifting sexual politics and wrenching political change. Our guide is Bella, who woke up one morning and realised she’d had enough. She’s the heroine of Helen Zahavi’s controversial bestseller and literary tour de force Dirty Weekend - and its film adaptation, a curious affair brought to you by Michael Winner.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enjoy the 1930s West London & Brighton drinking holes of 'Hangover Square': S1 Ep11

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:51:40 GMT

"To those whom God has forsaken, is given a gas-fire in Earl’s Court”

We’re joined in this, the 11th Curiously Specific Book Club podcast, by Andy (@DulwichRaider) from Deserter, who is our natural go-to mate for summoning up the spirit of alcoholic drift and under-employment that permeates ‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton. We are forced to drink in all the pubs on or just off the Earl’s Court Road, until we find the one that is mostly likely to be ‘The Black Hart’, the drinking den around which much of the book’s events revolve. We go to the exact point off the Cromwell Road where the author, Patrick Hamilton, was run over - and also where Netta (the book’s anti-heroine) resides. After one too many Gin & Frenches and much talk of fascism, Lloyd and Tim take off to Brighton in search of a theatre and golf course.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Find out exactly where Pinkie lived & died in 'Brighton Rock': S1 Ep10

Fri, 17 May 2019 08:26:52 GMT

“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.”

For the tenth instalment of the Curiously Specific Book Club podcast, we travel to the southern coast of England for Graham Greene’s ‘Brighton Rock’. We discover the Brighton of the 1930s, a place of seedy glamour shoved up against repulsive poverty, a town of razor boys, prostitutes, gangsters and dodgy lawyers. We find the tunnel where Fred Hale is done in by Pinkie, Dallow and Cubitt, and take tea in the same cafe where the killers eat fish and chips and ponder their next move. We hunt for Snow’s tea rooms, and ponder the meaning of good and evil in a Brighton shelter. Up on the hill above the Old Steyne we find the slums in which Pinkie and Rose spent their childhoods, and then we sit in the empty grandstand of Brighton racecourse, before following Pinkie’s desperate tracks as he scrambles down into the outskirts of Brighton, pursued by Collini’s razor boys.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Using Lovejoy novels to navigate 1970s Essex: S1 Ep9

Fri, 22 Mar 2019 12:05:03 GMT

“Antiques and Women are my only interests. It sounds simple, but you just try putting them in the right order.”

The third instalment of our East Anglian trilogy takes us to Essex. We immerse ourselves in the unreconstructed 1970s world of the UK’s favourite antiques dealer-cum-private eye - Lovejoy. We use Books 1 and 3 in the series - ‘The Judas Pair’ and ‘The Grail Tree’ - to explore Colchester and its environs and track down key locations, such the main antiques arcade where Lovejoy spends a lot of his time, the White Hart pub where all his deals get done, and his cottage where a dramatic showdown takes place with a villain with a crossbow.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Walk across Suffolk with 'The Rings of Saturn' as your only guide: S1 Ep8

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 13:55:51 GMT

“In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work.”

For the 8th 'CuSpec' Book Club podcast, and the second in our East Anglian trilogy, we’re in Suffolk, following in the footsteps of German writer W.G. ‘Max’ Sebald as he walked from the little town of Somerleyton to the bleak prospect of Orford Ness, taking in a spectacular sweep of European history (most of it awful) on the way. At the little railway station of Somerleyton, we start to suspect that all is not what it seems with Sebald’s journey, as we uncover an egregious case of not being able to tell one’s left from one’s right. We also ponder whether Sebaldians have actually read this book in quite as close a way as we intend to.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Plan your own 1943 invasion of Norfolk using 'The Eagle Has Landed': S1 Ep7

Fri, 11 Jan 2019 13:44:28 GMT

“At precisely one o’clock on the morning of Saturday 6 November 1943, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and Chief of State Police, received a simple message… The Eagle Has Landed.”

We’re in North Norfolk looking for the tiny village of Studley Constable, as described in Jack Higgins’s classic WW2 thriller about the attempted kidnap of Winston Churchill by a small band of German paratroopers. On the marshes of Stiffkey, amongst the remains of gun emplacements, pillboxes, tank traps and POW camp huts, we find a perfect place for Germans to sneak in and sneak out of the country. We visit a lot of villages - with mills, churches, bridges and pubs - none of which quite match Studley Constable. But at Weybourne Camp we do find enough evidence of a visit by Churchill in 1943 to believe that Higgins was not entirely making this whole story up.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A 1950s pub crawl through South London with 'The Ballad of Peckham Rye': S1 Ep6

Fri, 09 Nov 2018 13:32:26 GMT

We take you on a merry tour of the magical land of Peckham in South London, courtesy of Muriel Spark and her superb (and remarkably short) novel 'The Ballad of Peckham Rye'.

We start at the address in Camberwell where Muriel Spark lived and wrote the book. We then follow a number of lost - or perhaps completely mythical - pathways down the old Surrey Canal, past a number of long-gone pubs in Peckham & Nunhead, before emerging on to the ancient Rye - where Boadicea may or may not have popped her clogs. Tim gets very excited about the number of pubs you get to visit by following this book - some of them still there and serving pints!

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1880s London West End erotica & beer-drinking with 'The Secret Agent': S1 Ep5

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 11:26:09 GMT

Lloyd and Tim sink into the murky and topographically challenging world of Joseph Conrad’s imagined London, as described in the classic 1907 novel ‘The Secret Agent’. It’s a world of foreign agents, mysterious assassinations, international tensions and (alleged) Russian intrigue - so nothing like the world today, right? Our route through London takes in foreign embassies in Knightsbridge, dodgy book shops in Soho, underground beer halls on the Strand, plus the wide green spaces of Greenwich Park.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tramp the Old Ways in 1970s Eton and Windsor with 'The Dark Is Rising': S1 Ep4

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 12:17:13 GMT

Lloyd and Tim discover the hidden landscapes at the heart of Susan Cooper’s magnificent fantasy, The Dark Is Rising.

We travel to deepest Buckinghamshire to find Cooper’s fictional village of Huntercombe, and the home of her hero Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son. Lloyd gets obsessed with the dates of Britain’s first motorway for reasons which will only become obvious if you listen, while Tim brings stories of the emerging counter-culture of the late 1960s. We look for Herne’s Oak in Windsor Great Park, and go digging around in churchyards for Celtic crosses.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn to drive down the A20 like Bond in 'Moonraker': S1 Ep3

Fri, 13 Jul 2018 09:54:09 GMT

Lloyd and Tim take to the open road - or rather the somewhat congested A20. We're following the route taken by James Bond in Ian Fleming's 'Moonraker', travelling (at about half Bond's speed) between central London and Kingsdown, the supposed location of the Moonraker rocket base. We speed our way to the precise locations of two major car crashes in the book, puzzle over Fleming's (and Bond's) obsession with the Ashford Bypass, and end up at Fleming's not-so-glamourous 1950s beach-side residence where Katherine Hepburn - among others - was known to enjoy a swim.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 Ep 2 Extra: Eccleshare on Stig

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 11:49:56 GMT

Whenever we can, we're going to chat to someone who actually knows what they're talking about when it comes to the books we cover in the main podcast. This time, distinguished childrens book expert Julia Eccleshare agreed to talk to us about 'Stig of the Dump'. She covers a load of interesting topics including kids roaming free in the countryside, Stig's lack of a voice, the absence of parents and the general culture of kids literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A tour of rural Kent in search of Stig of the Dump: S1 Ep2

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 18:41:27 GMT

Lloyd and Tim go in search of the famous dump. We're using Clive King's classic childrens book 'Stig of the Dump' to navigate our way around rural Kent, with its heady mix of travellers, standing stones and luxury golf courses.

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Travel to 1840s Rochester with 'Edwin Drood': S1 Ep1 (pilot)

Fri, 11 May 2018 10:17:47 GMT

Lloyd and Tim travel from Wapping to Rochester via Cobham Park using 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' by Charles Dickens as our guide (with some help from 'All The Devils Are Here' by David Seabrook).

For early access to ad-free episodes - and exclusive access to all our show notes, maps, photos and videos - please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/curiouslyspecific.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.