The Waterstones Podcast

Gareth Southgate

From the discipline he learnt from his grandfather and the integrity from his parents, to the lessons learned from everything from inflatable unicorns to crucial penalties, Gareth Southgate's approach to management has lessons for us all. We sat down to speak to him about personal values, taking pride in your actions and what the future might hold.

Val McDermid

Continuing the seasonal series after Michael Morpurgo’s Spring, Val McDermid turns from crime to Winter, with its festivals, rituals and new year drive to achieve. We sat down with her to talk about the ghosts of Christmas past, holding on to tradition and why the new year is such a creative time for writing.

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie’s return to fiction sees him sharing a collection of stories which look at the questions that await us all at the end of our lives. We spoke with him about mortality, looking back and what the future might hold, together with what drives his creativity.

RF Kuang in conversation with Samantha Shannon

Join us for what promises to be an unmissable evening with bestselling author R.F. Kuang, as we celebrate the publication of her much-anticipated new novel, Katabasis.The internationally bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface returns with Katabasis: a sublimely dark and unputdownable tale of two rival Cambridge academics who must join forces on a rescue mission in hell itself.R.F. Kuang is now the author of six novels, with her debut novel The Poppy War written on her gap year in China and released in 2018. This was followed by The Dragon Republic (2019), The Burning God (2022), Babel (2022) and most recently Yellowface (2023).

Philip Pullman

30 years after he introduced the world to Lyra Belacqua, Philip Pullman launched the final volume in his Book of Dust series: The Rose Field. Just ahead of that event we sat down to speak with him about his feelings on finishing this epic writing task, the importance of imagination, and what he might turn to next as a storyteller.