Podcasts
The Book Collector Podcasts offer a unique and enjoyable way to experience our extensive archive.
Listen to audio recordings of articles from The Book Collector, read by members of our editorial team, contributors, trade members and guest speakers.
Listen directly via the audio players below, or find each series on your preferred podcast platform. Whether revisiting a favourite article or discovering a new voice, these recordings offer another way to encounter the people, collections and stories that shape the world of books.
The Book Collector Podcast Series
76 Episodes
Our flagship podcast series brings the pages of The Book Collector to life. Across 76 episodes, articles from our archive are read by friends and supporters of the journal — dealers, collectors and curators from the trade — alongside distinguished professional actors and narrators including Rupert Vansittart, Neil Pearson and Virginia Fergusson.
Together, they give new voice to essays, discoveries and reflections drawn from over seventy years of writing on books and collecting.
John Saumarez Smith
12 Episodes | Read by Neil Pearson
In this special 12-episode series, Neil Pearson reads a selection of articles by John Saumarez Smith, one of the most perceptive observers of the modern book world. The articles offer insight into collectors, libraries, dealers and the subtle habits of bibliophilic life — an informed and generous guide to the culture of books.
Fred Bason’s Diary
12 Episodes | Read by Clive Farahar
Sponsored by Adrian Harrington Rare Books
Fred Bason’s Diary follows the adventures of a young Cockney bookseller navigating the literary byways of London in the 1920s and 30s. In twelve lively episodes, Clive Farahar captures the humour, resilience and sharp eye of one of the trade’s most endearing chroniclers. By turns comic and poignant, Fred Bason’s Diary shares an intimate portrait of the second-hand book world between the wars.
Ann Baer’s Biblio-Vignettes
5 Episodes | Read by Sarah Bennett
This short series offers wry, affectionate glimpses into the curiosities and quiet absurdities of the book world. Elegant, amusing and lightly worn with experience, these anecdotes remind us that collecting is as much about character as it is about books.
Great Collectors
28 Episodes
Great Collectors brings together a selection of podcast episodes exploring the lives, libraries and legacies of notable collectors. Drawing on obituaries, catalogues and essays from the pages of The Book Collector, this curated series reflects on the personalities and passions that have shaped the world of collecting.
Included are a two-part account of Josiah Kirby Lilly, read by David Randall; Brian Alderson’s reflections on children’s books and their collectors; John Carter’s portrait Percy Muir at Eighty; and A. N. L. Munby’s amusing fictional story of a bibliophile in The Comte de Marnay.
Together, these episodes form a meditation on what it means to collect — and to be remembered by one’s books.