meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth

More Rosebud - Matt Haig

Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth / Plain Jaine Media

Society & Culture

4.62.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Matt Haig, the international best-selling author of books such as The Midnight Library, Reasons to Stay Alive, and his new release The Midnight Train, is our guest today. And this is one of our most in-depth and fascinating ever discussions of mental health and the true nature of depression. Matt's observations are genuinely illuminating, and full of hope and advice for anyone who has experienced despair. Matt also talks about shop-lifting as a teenager, being ADHD and autistic, and the first book he fell in love with. He talks about meeting his wife, going to Ibiza, and getting drunk in his French oral. He talks about why he writes. This is a refreshing and open conversation, full of wisdom and perception. Our thanks to Matt for this brilliant conversation.


Matt's new book The Midnight Train is out now, published by Canongate.


Enjoy this.


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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Giles Brandreth and Harriet Jane. We're together with you again for another episode of More Rosebud.

0:08.1

Cue the music. We're here. We're ready. And we're quite keen. Welcome to More Rosebud. I'm Charles Branruth and with me, well actually not actually with me today, but on the other side of London, because our

0:39.4

more Rosebud and our Rosebud, they come to you from London, England. And I am in southwest London.

0:46.2

My name is Giles Brandreth. And in, is it North London that I find? Yes, area trade. North London.

0:52.7

North London. North and South London.

0:55.3

I used to live north of the River Thames all my life.

0:58.9

And when I had to move south of the River Thames, I felt so embarrassed.

1:03.2

I felt ashamed.

1:04.5

You always lived north of the river?

1:06.4

No, I used to live in Brixton, Hur. Hurn Hill, various South London places.

1:11.7

I love South London, actually.

1:13.7

Oh.

1:14.1

Yeah, I'm very open-minded about areas of London.

1:17.9

I think I've lived in all four, East, West, South and North.

1:22.0

You are a very open-minded person.

1:24.7

I am.

1:25.0

Fantastic.

1:26.1

And I'm becoming more open-minded. In fact, I was on television

1:31.5

yesterday morning, and the subject came up. We were discussing people reading raunchy books on

1:38.4

the tube. Oh, that's a good subject. It was a good subject because apparently a lot of people wouldn't do this, though they would admit to reading raunchy books.

1:51.1

Is it because they don't want to get hot under the collar on the district line, which is fair enough, I think?

1:56.3

Yeah, because on the district line, you sometimes do only because the air conditioning is so poor on an old line like that, whereas on the Elizabeth's line, it's always cool.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 19 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Gyles Brandreth / Plain Jaine Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Gyles Brandreth / Plain Jaine Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.