Whilst you could get them some equipment – microphones or headphones – but you always run the risk of getting the wrong one. So my suggestion is to follow the lovely Icelandic tradition, and give them a podcast-related book. There are loads of books based on podcasts or by podcasters, and the best thing is – they are super simple to wrap too!

So if you’re after books based on podcasts, here are eleven of the best.

Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed.
by Chris & Rosie Ramsey

The husband and wife have been chatting about almost everything on their chart-topping podcast for nearly five years now, and they’ve committed their conversations to paper too. Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed by Chris & Rosie Ramsey goes through “the ups and downs and ins and outs of love, sex and relationships”. Author Daisy May Cooper said she “Laughed ’til I cried reading this. An absolute triumph!”. Find out more >>

The Rest Is History: The Official Book from the Makers of the Hit Podcast
By Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook

Released earlier this year, The Rest Is History is a great addition to the podcast from historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. It gives you a whistle-stop tour through the past by answering questions such as ‘did the Trojan War actually happen?’ and ‘how did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill’s cover?’. This is also a great present for history fans! Find out more >>

Diary of a CEO
by Steven Barlett

Steven Barlett’s podcast is consistently one of the most popular podcasts in the UK, so when he released his companion book earlier this year it was big news. The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business, Marketing and Life is partly based on interviews from his show, and promises to teach the reader principles ‘rooted in psychology and behavioral science’ that can apply to any industry. Find out more >>

What’s That Lady Doing?
by Lou Sanders

The host of Cuddle Club is a regular face on television and a regular voice on podcasts, but this step into literature is a new medium for her. And it’s worth saying that What’s That Lady Doing? shows a new side of Lou in an incredibly sincere memoir. As one review said “A memoir with this much rape and alcoholism in it has absolutely no business being so funny. But it is fucking hilarious.” Find out more >>

From Gay to Ze
By Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley

Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley broke new audio-ground with their first podcast, Some Families, which talked about the logistics of LGBTQ+ parenting. Their book The Queer Parent: Everything You Need to Know From Gay to Ze breaks literary ground as the first LGBTQ+ parenting book to ever be published by a major author. As the writers said to us earlier this year “Isn’t that insane?”. Find out more >>

It’s A Continent
by Chinny Ukata and Astrid Madimba

Chinny Ukata and Astrid Madimba educate and entertain listeners about the history of Africa with their podcast It’s A Continent. The book follows in its footsteps, appreciating the identity of each nation and exploring key historical moments that have shaped the continent, in an easily digestible, satirical (and shady) format. I was super excited to see the mention of Pod Bible in the bio at the start because we featured the podcast as a great women’s history podcast way back in 2021! Find out more >>

Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
By Rabia Chaudry

Serial is often credited with starting the first podcast boom – it has won every major award for broadcasting, including the first-ever Peabody awarded to a podcast. The epitome of the true crime genre, it is steeped in its own controversy. Rabia Chaudry’s book delves into the case on a much wider level, offers new content and evidence, and questions aspects that were only touched on – or not even reported – in the podcast. Find out more >>

How To Fail
By Elizabeth Day

Another hugely popular podcast, there are twelve whole seasons of How To Fail to catch up on. Elizabeth Day has spoken to hundreds of people about their failures and what it taught them. The book shines the light more on the author and is described as ‘part memoir, part manifesto’. This is a great one to give someone so they can start their new year on a positive – or learn to embrace the negative. Find out more >>

Welcome to Night Vale
by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

Whilst the Welcome To Night Vale podcast is in the style of a radio show, the book is a more traditional narrative. There are three book tie-ins to the series, and in this first, nineteen-year-old pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is determined to uncover the mystery of “King City”. Other books in the series are It Devours! and The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home. Find out more >>

Women vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film
By Helen O’Hara

Empire magazine’s ‘geek queen’, Helen O’Hara, explores women’s roles – both in front of and behind the camera – since the birth of Hollywood, how those roles are reflected within wider society and what we can do to level the playing field. The podcast and book were released as a joint venture and therefore feed into each other really well.  This book ticks the boxes for anyone who likes cinema, podcasts or books. Find out more >>

The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy of Heartbreak
By Rosie Wilby

One of our regular writers, Rosie has done the full circle from writing her book, to making her podcast, and back to writing books. The Breakup Monologues is the book that came out of her podcast of the same name, and Rosie explore the psychology of love and heartbreak by drawing on her own and others’ experiences. You can read more about the journey in our interview with her. Find out more >>

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HOW DID THE IDEA FOR STACKED COME ABOUT?

We met up in a park during the pandemic and had a really good conversation about the books we were reading and just felt people could benefit from it because we did. This was at the point when Mostly Lit had ended and we felt a very palpable absence of a Black British perspective on books that we didn’t notice or know we needed before they started. We felt there was a need within the industry for lesser-represented voices such as ours to share our thoughts, opinions and experiences. It has been amazing to witness the industry’s endeavours to highlight and promote black marginalised voices through publishing more black authors. But it is equally important to have black critics as conversations around art are elevated and enriched by perspectives that pick up the different ways it speaks to us – so we started Stacked.

SINCE YOU FOUND OUT THAT YOU WON ACAST AMPLIFIER, WHAT HAS THE PODCAST CREATION JOURNEY BEEN LIKE?

Fast and furious. In less than a year we’ve applied, found out we won, created Stacked and launched. It feels a bit like an episode of ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (90s babies will understand). We are total amateurs so everything has been new and foreign, and we’ve had to learn quickly. It’s also (fortunately) been a collaborative journey and we’re so grateful to Acast, CC co and all the creatives they’ve partnered us with.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHALLENGES WITH LAUNCHING STACKED?

Definitely the technical and business elements of launching a podcast, and having to manage everything with our day jobs – reading the books and recording the episodes on the other hand have been a breeze!

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR?

We’re looking forward to wrapping our first season and hearing what people think. Community is one of the founding pillars of our podcast, so it’ll be great to hand the mic over to our listeners and get a sense of their thoughts and feelings about the books we discuss in the first season. Funnily enough, more than anything, we really want to hear people’s feedback on our book recommendations. We pride ourselves on those.

WHAT’S THE PLAN WITH STACKED?

We’d say that the plan is to build and strengthen an inclusive literary community where we can continue to share ideas with our audience and have interesting conversations about the books we’ve read and how they’ve impacted our lives. We want to change the face of what a ‘reader’ is or can be. We want to continue to platform writers that we believe have been underappreciated and overlooked, while insuring that the same doesn’t happen to their contemporaries. And most of all, we want to have fun while we do it.

Listen to Stacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

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Want to join the UK’s BIGGEST podcast network, alongside Dane Baptiste, Jessie Ware and Adam Buxton? Start podcasting with Acast today! Use the code ACAST-POD-BIBLE for three months of their “Influencer” plan free at acast.com/start-podcasting. 

The post Introducing… Stacked appeared first on POD BIBLE.

About a year before the pandemic, I made the very sensible decision of spending all my savings on a creative writing master’s. Despite a long freelance career that straddled the corporate and creative worlds, I wanted to narrow my focus and instead at least try to commit to a more creative life. I was a professional singer with a residency at a London hotel and after completing my MA, I decided that singing would be my main source of income while I worked on my novel and other creative pursuits of podcasting and standup comedy.

Clever.

When lockdown hit, I didn’t just lose my income, it felt like I lost my voice.

I started a podcast with my boyfriend in 2019. The Dabblers’ Book Club was a simple couple’s hobby, built around the fact we both loved to talk and we both liked reading. Well, he loved reading, I always needed a bit of a nudge. The pod forced me to read a book every fortnight and to clarify my thoughts on it by talking it through. We reviewed novels and would laugh at one-star reviews on Amazon. It was a modest podcast but it was fun and it gave me the opportunity to connect with a range of people for interviews – it felt like a permission slip to approach people I admired and respected for a conversation. A particular highlight was interviewing the wonderful author Douglas Stuart about his Booker winning debut, Shuggie Bain.

In the early stages of lockdown, despite the chaos in my head, The Dabblers’ Book Club gave me a sense of purpose and even identity. I’m undeniably an extrovert but growing up in a strict religious household instilled a sense of shame in me about any traits that might be deemed unladylike; I knew from a young age that I was ‘too loud’ and that anything I said would be subject to intense scrutiny. So when it came to podcasting it wasn’t the chat, but the edit that felt like a battle. I started out cutting huge sections of what I’d said in case the logic was even slightly flawed or ill-considered; I’d take out jokes I’d found funny at the time; I’d edit out every ‘umm’ to the point I sounded like a robot; and even though there was no clipping or distortion I’d cut out the occasional foghorn that was my laugh. I simply couldn’t believe that not everyone was listening to tear me apart. That some people do actually want to hear what you think and will allow you your flaws. The inner critic is hard to silence. As schedules changed, reading got harder and we let the podcast fizzle out, but I’m determined not to let my voice die with it.

So, I’ve given myself permission to be too loud again or – as anyone who’s not my dad would call it – to have conversations in public. Lots and lots of conversations, in fact, with brilliant people, covering everything from love, loss and grief to travel, creativity and identity. To get me through this post-pandemic lull and make some noise, I’m launching The Noisy Hajar Podcast, a weekly podcast where I’ll invite guests to talk about absolutely anything they want. As a judge at the British Podcast Awards, I should know better than to dive in without a clear structure or plan, but that’s also the beauty of podcasting. Just as some of best lines in TV comedy history came from hours of improv, you never know what gems you’ll find just by talking things through. To get some inspiration (and bag some future guests) I’ll be heading to some of the brilliant live podcast events at the London Podcast Festival this month. Here are my picks.

Halfies: A Live Podcast
Thursday 8 th September | 9.30pm | £9.50

If you’re dual heritage like me and have never known which box to tick on a diversity form, this one’s for you. To talk about the funny side of growing up a ‘halfie’, I’ll be joined by razor-sharp comic and fellow Anglo-Iranian Darius Davies and ‘the best British-Surinamese, Irish-Palestinian duo on the circuit’, Shirley & Shirley, aka Joanna Carolan and Pascale Wilson. Buy tickets >>

A Gay and A NonGay
Friday 9 th September | 7pm | £9.50

I saw James Barr’s brilliant ‘Straight Jokes’ show at the Edinburgh Fringe and I know this live podcast, nominated in the Best Interview and Sex & Relationships categories at this year’s British Podcast Awards will deliver just as many laughs. Expect audience interaction, a safe space for Dan to ask questions to the LGBTQ+ community in Things That Dan Cannot Say, and a laugh-out-loud look at the differences between Gay and NonGay people. Buy tickets >>

Griefcast
Sunday 11 th September | 7pm | £14.50

Grief isn’t something we seem to have a particular language or culture around in the UK, but luckily people are trying to change that. This podcast has been a lifeline for some of my friends who’ve experienced the heartbreak and aching loneliness of loss. Comedian Cariad Lloyd is joined by Karen Hobbs, Marcus Brigstocke and Saima Ferdows to talk all things grief and death and to plan their own funerals at the same time. Buy tickets >>

Chart Music: The TOTP Podcast
Sunday 17 th September | 2pm | £12.50

Now that I’m 36, a good Friday night in consists of a bottle of wine and 90s Top of the Pops, so this is right up my street. For this special live episode, host Al Needham will be joined onstage by David Stubbs, Sarah Bee and Taylor Parkes for a concentrated, 90-minute blast of putting the trainers to the anus of an episode of our favourite Thursday night pop treat. Buy tickets >>

90 Minutes Or Less Film Fest Fest: Dan Schreiber on Naked Gun 2 1/2 – The Smell of Fear
Sunday 18 th September | Noon | £9.50

I loved the Naked Gun films as a kid, and still have Priscilla Presley’s three-point flashing dress emblazoned in my memory, so this is a must-watch for me. For this live edition of the show, Sam Clements will be joined by Dan Schrieber to watch the film and then chat about it after. A pretty perfect Sunday afternoon. Buy tickets >>

Read more articles about the London Podcast Festival or head to the Kings Place Website to buy your tickets!

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