Anthony Horowitz Q&A
Simon Mayo's Books of the Year
Bauer Media
4.9 • 994 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anthony Horowitz (known for his Alex Rider series, Foyles War, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, the Magpie Murders and many more) joins Simon Mayo and Matt Williams for a natter about his writing and favourite authors!
He also shares a story about working with Meryl Streep (or rather, NOT working with her) and reveals who he would invite to his fantasy dinner party.
We also surprise Anthony with a question from fellow author - Lucy Foley!
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Transcript
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| 0:48.5 | see little.orgia.k slash LPTV. Hello and welcome. This is our bonus Q&A episode of Books of the Year, |
| 1:05.9 | best-selling author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz, number three in the charts, is still with us. But by the time |
| 1:13.1 | this goes out, maybe you're at number one. Who can say? That's what I'm saying. So Anthony, |
| 1:18.1 | what is the last book that you really, really enjoyed reading? Well, it was nonfiction. And it's |
| 1:23.8 | just been published. And it's Rasputin by Anthony Beaver, who is a wonderful history writer, and I know him personally, which is not why I'm mentioning it, but it just happens to be the last book I really enjoyed. |
| 1:34.4 | And why I enjoyed it was that Anthony's books tend to be huge in scope, so he'll take on sort of the whole year, so in 1945, which I've just finished reading that too, because I'm writing a book set in Berlin in 1945, |
| 1:45.0 | and Anthony is sort of the first top historian to go to. |
| 1:48.0 | But I was sent Rasputin, as I often do get sent books, and read it sort of just half out of interest, |
| 1:55.0 | because Rasputin is one of those names that everybody knows, but how much about him do we know? |
| 2:00.0 | And by the end of this book I knew a lot, and it's a fascinating story. |
| 2:03.4 | I mean, really incredible how this one weird peasant who may or may not have had some kind |
| 2:08.3 | of magical spiritual powers brought down a dynasty and changed a world. |
| 2:13.2 | I mean, it's an incredible story. |
| 2:14.5 | And I like the fact that Anthony is focusing this time on a single person rather than on armies and countries and, you know, huge empires. Wow. Superb. Well, the next question is going to be about screen adaptations. And straight away, I thought, goodness me, has there ever been a movie about Rasputin? Because I'd love to watch that movie. I think there have been movies in which Rasputin has appeared, |
| 2:35.2 | which I'm not sure if there has been a... |
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