BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks
The BBC Radio 2 Book Club began in 2010 as a regular feature on Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show. After periods under several Radio 2 presenters, it was relaunched in 2024 with Sara Cox as host and a weekly BBC Sounds podcast.
The club highlights newly published fiction across genres, combining major authors with debuts and emerging voices. Its selections are made with support from The Reading Agency, librarians, and reading experts across the UK.
| Book Title | Author | Series | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rubbernecker | Belinda Bauer | Standalone | January 2013 Pick |
| The Universe Versus Alex Woods | Gavin Extence | Standalone | February 2013 Pick |
| Wool | Hugh Howey | Wool / Silo | February 2013 Pick |
| The Storyteller | Jodi Picoult | Standalone | March 2013 Pick |
| The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat | Edward Kelsey Moore | The Supremes | March 2013 Pick |
| Six Years | Harlan Coben | Standalone | April 2013 Pick |
| The Rosie Project | Graeme Simsion | Don Tillman | April 2013 Pick |
| The Shock of the Fall / Where the Moon Isn't | Nathan Filer | Standalone | May 2013 Pick |
| This House Is Haunted | John Boyne | Standalone | May 2013 Pick |
| A Thousand Pardons | Jonathan Dee | Standalone | June 2013 Pick |
| The Son | Philipp Meyer | Standalone | July 2013 Pick |
| The String Diaries | Stephen Lloyd Jones | The String Diaries | July 2013 Pick |
| I Am Pilgrim | Terry Hayes | Pilgrim | August 2013 Pick |
| An Officer and a Spy | Robert Harris | Standalone | September 2013 Pick |
| Burial Rites | Hannah Kent | Standalone | September 2013 Pick |
| More Than This | Patrick Ness | Standalone | September 2013 Pick |
| Mad About the Boy | Helen Fielding | Bridget Jones | October 2013 Pick |
| The Silent Wife | A.S.A. Harrison | Standalone | October 2013 Pick |
| Identical | Scott Turow | Kindle County Legal Thriller | November 2013 Pick |
| The Orenda | Joseph Boyden | Bird Family Trilogy | November 2013 Pick |
| The Night Guest | Fiona McFarlane | Standalone | January 2014 Pick |
| Wake | Anna Hope | Standalone | January 2014 Pick |
| Half Bad | Sally Green | The Half Bad Trilogy | February 2014 Pick |
| Road to Reckoning | Robert Lautner | Standalone | February 2014 Pick |
| Frog Music | Emma Donoghue | Standalone | March 2014 Pick |
| The Ruby Slippers | Keir Alexander | Standalone | March 2014 Pick |
| The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August | Claire North | Standalone | April 2014 Pick |
| The Son | Jo Nesbø | Standalone | April 2014 Pick |
| The Boy That Never Was | Karen Perry | Standalone | May 2014 Pick |
| The Year of the Rat | Clare Furniss | Standalone | May 2014 Pick |
| A Man Called Ove | Fredrik Backman | Standalone | June 2014 Pick |
| Elizabeth Is Missing | Emma Healey | Standalone | June 2014 Pick |
| The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair | Joël Dicker | Marcus Goldman | June 2014 Pick |
| We Are Called to Rise | Laura McBride | Standalone | July 2014 Pick |
| Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon / Missing Rose | Linda Newbery | Standalone | August 2014 Pick |
| The Spring of Kasper Meier | Ben Fergusson | Kasper Meier | August 2014 Pick |
| A History of Loneliness | John Boyne | Standalone | September 2014 Pick |
| The Bone Clocks | David Mitchell | Standalone | September 2014 Pick |
| The Children Act | Ian McEwan | Standalone | October 2014 Pick |
| Us | David Nicholls | Standalone | October 2014 Pick |
| Leaving Time | Jodi Picoult | Standalone | November 2014 Pick |
| Moriarty | Anthony Horowitz | Sherlock Holmes | November 2014 Pick |
| Better Off Dead / No Tomorrow | Tom Wood | Victor the Assassin | December 2014 Pick |
| The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman / The Postman's Round | Denis Thériault | Postman | December 2014 Pick |
| The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins | Standalone | January 2015 Pick |
| The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes | Anna McPartlin | Rabbit Hayes | January 2015 Pick |
| Etta and Otto and Russell and James | Emma Hooper | Standalone | February 2015 Pick |
| The Mirror World of Melody Black | Gavin Extence | Standalone | February 2015 Pick |
| A Place Called Winter | Patrick Gale | Harry Cane | March 2015 Pick |
| Not Quite Nice | Celia Imrie | Nice / Bellevue-Sur-Mer | March 2015 Pick |
| I'll Give You the Sun | Jandy Nelson | Standalone | April 2015 Pick |
| The Gracekeepers | Kirsty Logan | Standalone | April 2015 Pick |
| Solitude Creek | Jeffery Deaver | Kathryn Dance | May 2015 Pick |
| All Together Now | Gill Hornby | Standalone | June 2015 Pick |
| The Improbability of Love | Hannah Rothschild | Standalone | June 2015 Pick |
| The Truth and Other Lies | Sascha Arango | Standalone | June 2015 Pick |
| The New Woman | Charity Norman | Standalone | July 2015 Pick |
| The Truth According to Us | Annie Barrows | Standalone | July 2015 Pick |
| A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding | Jackie Copleton | Standalone | August 2015 Pick |
| Black-Eyed Susans | Julia Heaberlin | Standalone | September 2015 Pick |
| City on Fire | Garth Risk Hallberg | Standalone | October 2015 Pick |
| The Heart Goes Last | Margaret Atwood | Standalone | October 2015 Pick |
| Career of Evil | Robert Galbraith | Cormoran Strike | November 2015 Pick |
| Landfalls | Naomi J. Williams | Standalone | November 2015 Pick |
| Slade House | David Mitchell | Standalone | November 2015 Pick |
| The Marble Collector | Cecelia Ahern | Standalone | December 2015 Pick |
| The Good Liar | Nicholas Searle | Standalone | January 2016 Pick |
| Wolf by Wolf | Ryan Graudin | Wolf by Wolf | January 2016 Pick |
| Coffin Road | Peter May | Standalone | February 2016 Pick |
| Exposure | Helen Dunmore | Standalone | February 2016 Pick |
| Freya | Anthony Quinn | Curtain Call | February 2016 Pick |
| The Poison Artist | Jonathan Moore | Standalone | March 2016 Pick |
| Everyone Brave is Forgiven | Chris Cleave | Standalone | April 2016 Pick |
| How To Look For A Lost Dog | Ann M. Martin | Standalone | April 2016 Pick |
| Shtum | Jem Lester | Standalone | May 2016 Pick |
| This Must Be the Place | Maggie O'Farrell | Standalone | May 2016 Pick |
| My Name is Leon | Kit de Waal | Standalone | June 2016 Pick |
| The End of the World Running Club | Adrian J. Walker | The End of the World Running Club | June 2016 Pick |
| False Hearts | Laura Lam | Pacifica | July 2016 Pick |
| The Memory Stones | Caroline Brothers | Standalone | July 2016 Pick |
| Miss You | Kate Eberlen | Standalone | August 2016 Pick |
| Taduno's Song | Odafe Atogun | Standalone | August 2016 Pick |
| The Graces | Laure Eve | The Graces | September 2016 Pick |
| The Last Days of Jack Sparks | Jason Arnopp | Standalone | September 2016 Pick |
| A Closed and Common Orbit | Becky Chambers | Wayfarers | October 2016 Pick |
| Conclave | Robert Harris | Standalone | October 2016 Pick |
| Thin Air | Michelle Paver | Standalone | October 2016 Pick |
| Holding | Graham Norton | Standalone | November 2016 Pick |
| The Tobacconist | Robert Seethaler | Standalone | November 2016 Pick |
| Himself | Jess Kidd | Standalone | December 2016 Pick |
| Homegoing | Yaa Gyasi | Standalone | January 2017 Pick |
| Pendulum | Adam Hamdy | Pendulum | January 2017 Pick |
| A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles | Standalone | February 2017 Pick |
| The Girl Before | JP Delaney | Standalone | February 2017 Pick |
| All Our Wrong Todays | Elan Mastai | Standalone | March 2017 Pick |
| Gilded Cage | Vic James | Dark Gifts | March 2017 Pick |
| The Dry | Jane Harper | Aaron Falk | April 2017 Pick |
| The Hate U Give | Angie Thomas | The Hate U Give | April 2017 Pick |
| He Said/She Said | Erin Kelly | Standalone | May 2017 Pick |
| Into the Water | Paula Hawkins | Standalone | May 2017 Pick |
| Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine | Gail Honeyman | Standalone | June 2017 Pick |
| You Don't Know Me | Imran Mahmood | Standalone | June 2017 Pick |
| The Lightkeeper's Daughters | Jean E. Pendziwol | Standalone | July 2017 Pick |
| The One | John Marrs | Dark Future | July 2017 Pick |
| Tin Man | Sarah Winman | Standalone | August 2017 Pick |
| Spoonbenders | Daryl Gregory | Standalone | September 2017 Pick |
| The History of Bees | Maja Lunde | Klimakvartetten | September 2017 Pick |
| How to Stop Time | Matt Haig | Standalone | October 2017 Pick |
| Munich | Robert Harris | Standalone | October 2017 Pick |
| The Silent Companions | Laura Purcell | Standalone | October 2017 Pick |
| America City | Chris Beckett | Standalone | November 2017 Pick |
| The House aka The New Neighbors | Simon Lelic | Standalone | November 2017 Pick |
| Seven Days of Us | Francesca Hornak | Standalone | December 2017 Pick |
| Artemis | Andy Weir | Standalone | January 2018 Pick |
| Three Things About Elsie | Joanna Cannon | Standalone | January 2018 Pick |
| Need To Know | Karen Cleveland | Standalone | February 2018 Pick |
| The Sealwoman's Gift | Sally Magnusson | Standalone | February 2018 Pick |
| Girl in Snow | Danya Kukafka | Standalone | March 2018 Pick |
| Mr. Flood's Last Resort / The Hoarder | Jess Kidd | Standalone | March 2018 Pick |
| The Second Child | Caroline Bond | Standalone | April 2018 Pick |
| A Keeper | Graham Norton | Standalone | October 2018 Pick |
| The Little Stranger | Sarah Waters | Standalone | October 2018 Pick |
| Roar | Cecelia Ahern | Collection | November 2018 Pick |
| Widows | Lynda La Plante | Dolly Rawlins | November 2018 Pick |
| Juliet, Naked | Nick Hornby | Standalone | December 2018 Pick |
| The Stranger Diaries | Elly Griffiths | Harbinder Kaur | December 2018 Pick |
| The Golden Child | Claire Adam | Standalone | January 2019 Pick |
| Girl with a Pearl Earring | Tracy Chevalier | Standalone | February 2019 Pick |
| On the Come Up | Angie Thomas | Standalone | February 2019 Pick |
| Leonard and the Hungry Paul | Ronan Hession | Standalone | March 2019 Pick |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger | Standalone | March 2019 Pick |
| The Flatshare | Beth O'Leary | Standalone | April 2019 Pick |
| Wakenhyrst | Michelle Paver | Standalone | April 2019 Pick |
| Meat Market | Juno Dawson | London Trilogy | May 2019 Pick |
| The Farm | Joanne Ramos | Standalone | May 2019 Pick |
| The Beekeeper of Aleppo | Christy Lefteri | Standalone | June 2019 Pick |
| The Doll Factory | Elizabeth Macneal | Standalone | June 2019 Pick |
| Found | Erin Kinsley | Standalone | July 2019 Pick |
| Nightingale Point | Luan Goldie | Standalone | July 2019 Pick |
| Sweet Sorrow | David Nicholls | Standalone | August 2019 Pick |
| The Woman in the White Kimono | Ana Johns | Standalone | August 2019 Pick |
| Ask Again, Yes | Mary Beth Keane | Standalone | September 2019 Pick |
| The Offing | Benjamin Myers | Standalone | September 2019 Pick |
| The Places I've Cried in Public | Holly Bourne | Standalone | October 2019 Pick |
| Three Little Truths | Eithne Shortall | Standalone | October 2019 Pick |
| Olive, Again | Elizabeth Strout | Olive Kitteridge | November 2019 Pick |
| The Giver of Stars | Jojo Moyes | Standalone | November 2019 Pick |
| Royals | Emma Forrest | Standalone | December 2019 Pick |
| The Poppy Wife / The Photographer of the Lost | Caroline Scott | Standalone | December 2019 Pick |
| Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line | Deepa Anappara | Standalone | January 2020 Pick |
| The Mercies | Kiran Millwood Hargrave | Standalone | January 2020 Pick |
| American Dirt | Jeanine Cummins | Standalone | February 2020 Pick |
| One Moment | Linda Green | Standalone | February 2020 Pick |
| Grown Ups | Marian Keyes | Standalone | March 2020 Pick |
| The Girl with the Louding Voice | Abi Daré | Standalone | March 2020 Pick |
| Away with the Penguins / How the Penguins Saved Veronica | Hazel Prior | Veronica McCreedy | April 2020 Pick |
| The Silent Treatment | Abbie Greaves | Standalone | April 2020 Pick |
| The Authenticity Project | Clare Pooley | Standalone | May 2020 Pick |
| The Secrets of Strangers | Charity Norman | Standalone | May 2020 Pick |
| The Cat and The City | Nick Bradley | Standalone | June 2020 Pick |
| The Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett | Standalone | June 2020 Pick |
| Cry Baby | Mark Billingham | Tom Thorne | July 2020 Pick |
| The Shelf | Helly Acton | Standalone | July 2020 Pick |
| Shuggie Bain | Douglas Stuart | Standalone | August 2020 Pick |
| The Miseducation of Evie Epworth | Matson Taylor | The Miseducation of Evie Epworth | August 2020 Pick |
| Forgotten Country | Catherine Chung | Standalone | September 2020 Pick |
| The Thursday Murder Club | Richard Osman | Thursday Murder Club | September 2020 Pick |
| The Devil and the Dark Water | Stuart Turton | Standalone | October 2020 Pick |
| The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue | V.E. Schwab | Standalone | October 2020 Pick |
| A More Perfect Union | Tammye Huf | Standalone | November 2020 Pick |
| Three Women and a Boat / The Narrowboat Summer | Anne Youngson | Standalone | November 2020 Pick |
| You Exist Too Much | Zaina Arafat | Standalone | November 2020 Pick |
| Fortune Favours the Dead | Stephen Spotswood | Pentecost and Parker | December 2020 Pick |
| Concrete Rose | Angie Thomas | The Hate U Give | February 2021 Pick |
| We Are All Birds of Uganda | Hafsa Zayyan | Standalone | March 2021 Pick |
| The Cut | Christopher Brookmyre | Standalone | April 2021 Pick |
| Project Hail Mary | Andy Weir | Standalone | May 2021 Pick |
| How to Kidnap the Rich | Rahul Raina | Standalone | June 2021 Pick |
| Hostage | Clare Mackintosh | Standalone | July 2021 Pick |
| The Coward | Jarred McGinnis | Standalone | August 2021 Pick |
| Apples Never Fall | Liane Moriarty | Standalone | September 2021 Pick |
| Pony | R.J. Palacio | Standalone | October 2021 Pick |
| The Lincoln Highway | Amor Towles | Standalone | November 2021 Pick |
| We Are Not Like Them | Jo Piazza Christine Pride | Standalone | December 2021 Pick |
| A Terrible Kindness | Jo Browning Wroe | Standalone | January 2022 Pick |
| Love Marriage | Monica Ali | Standalone | February 2022 Pick |
| Peach Blossom Spring | Melissa Fu | Standalone | March 2022 Pick |
| Lessons in Chemistry | Bonnie Garmus | Standalone | April 2022 Pick |
| Remarkably Bright Creatures | Shelby Van Pelt | Standalone | May 2022 Pick |
| Wrong Place, Wrong Time | Gillian McAllister | Standalone | June 2022 Pick |
| Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow | Gabrielle Zevin | Standalone | July 2022 Pick |
| More Than You'll Ever Know | Katie Gutierrez | Standalone | August 2022 Pick |
| The Marriage Portrait | Maggie O'Farrell | Standalone | September 2022 Pick |
| Someone Else’s Shoes | Jojo Moyes | Standalone | January 2023 Pick |
| The Silence Project | Carole Hailey | Standalone | February 2023 Pick |
| Other Women | Emma Flint | Standalone | March 2023 Pick |
| The Bandit Queens | Parini Shroff | Standalone | March 2023 Pick |
| River Sing Me Home | Eleanor Shearer | Standalone | April 2023 Pick |
| Tell Me How This Ends | Jo Leevers | Standalone | April 2023 Pick |
| Becoming Ted | Matt Cain | Standalone | May 2023 Pick |
| Cassandra in Reverse / The Cassandra Complex | Holly Smale | Standalone | May 2023 Pick |
| Geek Girl | Holly Smale | Geek Girl | May 2023 Pick |
| Neverwhere | Neil Gaiman | London Below | May 2023 Pick |
| Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros | The Empyrean | June 2023 Pick |
| Grave Expectations | Alice Bell | Grave Expectations | June 2023 Pick |
| Big Girl | Mecca Jamilah Sullivan | Standalone | July 2023 Pick |
| Bad Men | Julie Mae Cohen | Standalone | August 2023 Pick |
| A Bird in Winter | Louise Doughty | Standalone | September 2023 Pick |
| Tom Lake | Ann Patchett | Standalone | September 2023 Pick |
| Thieves' Gambit | Kayvion Lewis | Thieves' Gambit | October 2023 Pick |
| The Day We Left | Caroline Bond | Standalone | November 2023 Pick |
| The Year of the Locust | Terry Hayes | Pilgrim | November 2023 Pick |
| A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself | Katherine Howe | Standalone | December 2023 Pick |
| Gaslight | Femi Kayode | Philip Taiwo | December 2023 Pick |
| The Storm We Made | Vanessa Chan | Standalone | January 2024 Pick |
| Clear | Carys Davies | Standalone | February 2024 Pick |
| The List of Suspicious Things | Jennie Godfrey | Standalone | February 2024 Pick |
| The Painter's Daughters | Emily Howes | Standalone | February 2024 Pick |
| A Case of Mice and Murder | Sally Smith | The Trials of Gabriel Ward | October 2024 Pick |
| Alter Ego | Helen Heckety | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| Our Evenings | Alan Hollinghurst | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| Precipice | Robert Harris | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| Rare Singles | Benjamin Myers | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| Table for Two: Fictions | Amor Towles | Collection | October 2024 Pick |
| The Book of Witching | C.J. Cooke | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| You Are Here | David Nicholls | Standalone | October 2024 Pick |
| Hunted | Abir Mukherjee | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| James | Percival Everett | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| Margo's Got Money Troubles | Rufi Thorpe | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| My Favourite Mistake | Marian Keyes | Walsh Family | November 2024 Pick |
| Playground | Richard Powers | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| The Coast Road | Alan Murrin | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| The Glass Girl | Kathleen Glasgow | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| The Ministry of Time | Kaliane Bradley | Standalone | November 2024 Pick |
| The Lion Women of Tehran | Marjan Kamali | Standalone | December 2024 Pick |
| Time of the Child | Niall Williams | Standalone | December 2024 Pick |
| A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage | Asia Mackay | A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage | January 2025 Pick |
| Human, Animal | Seth Insua | Standalone | February 2025 Pick |
| Nesting | Roisín O’Donnell | Standalone | February 2025 Pick |
| Fundamentally | Nussaibah Younis | Standalone | March 2025 Pick |
| The Favorites | Layne Fargo | Standalone | March 2025 Pick |
| Ordinary Saints | Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin | Standalone | April 2025 Pick |
| The Correspondent | Virginia Evans | Standalone | April 2025 Pick |
| Who Wants to Live Forever | Hanna Thomas Uose | Standalone | April 2025 Pick |
| Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil | V.E. Schwab | Standalone | May 2025 Pick |
| The Book of Guilt | Catherine Chidgey | Standalone | May 2025 Pick |
| Atmosphere | Taylor Jenkins Reid | Standalone | June 2025 Pick |
| The Rush | Beth Lewis | Standalone | June 2025 Pick |
| The Art of a Lie | Laura Shepherd-Robinson | Standalone | July 2025 Pick |
| The Compound | Aisling Rawle | Standalone | July 2025 Pick |
| Dead Lucky | Connor Hutchinson | Standalone | August 2025 Pick |
| Katabasis | R.F. Kuang | Standalone | August 2025 Pick |
| A Splintering | Dur e Aziz Amna | Standalone | September 2025 Pick |
| The Two Roberts | Damian Barr | Standalone | September 2025 Pick |
| Artificial Wisdom | Thomas R. Weaver | Standalone | October 2025 Pick |
| The Murder at World’s End | Ross Montgomery | Stockingham & Pike | October 2025 Pick |
| King Sorrow | Joe Hill | Standalone | November 2025 Pick |
| The Eleventh Hour | Salman Rushdie | Collection | November 2025 Pick |
| The Shapeshifter's Daughter | Sally Magnusson | Standalone | November 2025 Pick |
| The Merge | Grace Walker | Standalone | December 2025 Pick |
| The White Octopus Hotel | Alexandra Bell | Standalone | December 2025 Pick |
| The Poet Empress | Shen Tao | Standalone | January 2026 Pick |
| This Book Made Me Think of You | Libby Page | Standalone | January 2026 Pick |
| Keeper of Lost Children | Sadeqa Johnson | Standalone | February 2026 Pick |
| Saoirse | Charleen Hurtubise | Standalone | February 2026 Pick |
| Witch Trial | Harriet Tyce | Standalone | February 2026 Pick |
| Minbak | Ela Lee | Standalone | March 2026 Pick |
| This Story Might Save Your Life | Tiffany Crum | Standalone | March 2026 Pick |
| Love Lane | Patrick Gale | Harry Cane | April 2026 Pick |
| Under Water | Tara Menon | Standalone | April 2026 Pick |
| Yesteryear | Caro Claire Burke | Standalone | April 2026 Pick |
| Dissection of a Murder | Jo Murray | Standalone | May 2026 Pick |
| John of John | Douglas Stuart | Standalone | May 2026 Pick |
| The Wreck | Lizzy Stewart | Lizzy Stewart Children's Books | May 2026 Pick |
| Mrs. Dickens | Emily Howes | Standalone | June 2026 Pick |
| The Girl with a Thousand Faces | Sunyi Dean | Standalone | June 2026 Pick |
Notable BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman:
This international bestseller inspired both Swedish and Hollywood films and became one of the club’s most widely recognized selections.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins:
One of the club’s biggest breakout picks, this psychological thriller became a global bestseller and a major film.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas:
A landmark young adult novel with considerable cultural impact, it became a bestseller and was adapted for film.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman:
This hugely successful debut launched Osman’s bestselling crime series and was later adapted by Netflix.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus:
A global bestseller and Apple TV+ adaptation, it stands among the club’s most prominent recent crossover hits.
If You Like The BBC Radio 2 Book Club…
If you are a fan of the BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks, and would like to check out more picks in a similar style, we recommend:
Richard & Judy Book Club
The closest UK-focused match, with broad, accessible selections promoted through familiar media personalities.
Good Morning America Book Club
A strong international counterpart, combining broadcast exposure with contemporary, conversation-friendly books.
Barnes & Noble Book Club
A natural fit for readers who enjoy mainstream fiction chosen for wide appeal and group discussion.