A trip to our secret book vault. Plus: the best books of 2021

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This weekend, we’re going behind the scenes of the FT’s legendary Books of the Year roundup. Literary editor Frederick Studemann and deputy books editor Laura Battle take us into a secret room in the basement of the FT, where all the books sent in for review are kept behind lock and key. You’ll leave this episode with a lot on your reading list, including recommendations from editor Roula Khalaf, FT weekend editor Alec Russell, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf and more.

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If you want a $1 trial or 50% off a digital subscription, go to http://ft.com/weekendpodcast

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Want to say hi? Email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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We want your cultural predictions, wishes, or questions for 2022! Share them with Lilah and FT Magazine editor Matt Vella by Sunday, December 12. Open your phone’s voice memo app, get close to the mic and say your name, location and your thoughts, then email it to [email protected]. You can write to us, too. But you’ll sound great on tape, we promise.

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Links and mentions from the episode:

–Roula Khalaf recommends Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

–Pilita Clark recommends The Hydrogen Revolution by Marco Alvira and How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. Her whole climate list: https://on.ft.com/3DFcYLr

–Alec Russell recommends Sentient by Jackie Higgins and Free by Lea Ypi

–Edwin Heathcote recommends Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub. His whole architecture and design list: https://www.ft.com/content/37545da9-7142-408b-a0bb-e458079ebd53

–One of Edwin’s favorite books of the past few years is Sandfuture by Justin Beal. Here’s his review (free to read): https://www.ft.com/content/91a35024-4e41-4325-81ca-2373321ae4ff

–Fred Studemann recommends Notes from Deep Time by Helen Gordon, The Passenger by Ulrich Boschwitz and Just the Plague by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

–Laura Battle recommends Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, and the audiobook of Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Her whole fiction list: https://www.ft.com/content/7a881a03-2462-459e-930c-f526e4e54449

–Martin Wolf’s economics list: https://www.ft.com/content/25ca2b59-8047-4f9b-bf99-e7f7c15d8d51

–Explore the whole Books of the Year package: https://www.ft.com/booksof2021

Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design is by Breen Turner.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Financial Times is a house of books. If you work here, you're working with books. You're sent
0:05.6	books. There are books lying around everywhere. I always wondered before working in journalism
0:11.3	how it all works with book reviews. When I started hosting the podcast, it became very clear
0:16.9	because I started getting books. Publishers sent me upcoming books to consider their authors
0:21.9	as potential guests or to recommend, and little piles started accumulating on my desk and in my
0:27.6	apartment. And I looked around and realized there were piles on all of my colleagues' desks, too.
0:34.3	Books have this way of appearing and also disappearing at the F.T. If you're looking for something, chances are you can wander around and just grab it off a desk. You don't happen to have a copy lying around of the Kissinger AI book, do you? I don't. You're like the third ruler now. No, Ruda's been telling everyone that it's such an important book, we all have to read it. I don't buy the damn thing.
0:55.5	We're just about to go down to the books cover, and if I see one, I'll grab it.
1:03.5	That's Fred Studerman, the FT's literary editor, fielding a request from one of our colleagues in the London Newsroom.
1:10.5	This week, Fred and Deputy Books Editor Laura Battle took us to a secret room where they're
1:15.9	keepers of the key. Fred calls it the book cupboard, but really it's a book vault or, you know,
1:22.0	like a book crypt. Do you want to see the really scary bit of the FT?
1:27.1	It's level minus 9, 3 quarters?
1:29.7	Yes, exactly.
1:30.7	This is our sort of platform 13 and whatever.
1:34.0	No, it's deep down below this building.
1:37.4	If I think I get books, Fred and Laura really get books.
1:40.5	Hundreds of books at a time that publishers mail to them hoping for a positive review,
1:45.6	or really any review.
1:47.3	Fiction books, nonfiction, cookbooks, art books, poetry, how-to books, everything,
1:53.7	books that are about to publish, and unfinished proof copies of books that won't be on your shelves till the spring.
1:59.8	They need a place to store them, hence the subterranean chamber in the basement of Brackenhouse.
	...

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