LBC book club

A new book club run by London radio station LBC has been criticised for selecting titles on the basis of payments made by publishers, reports Jack Malvern in The Times.

Books that appear on the Book of the Month feature on Daisy Sampson’s drive-time show on LBC are selected not by a panel of experts, but by the books’ publishers, who pay £10,000 to get a book on air. Despite criticism from authors, who believe that readers will be misled by the book club, LBC said that it had no intention of informing its listeners of the five-figure fees.

Mostra, the marketing agency which set up the club, said that although it would allow a range of views to be broadcast on each book, LBC would not broadcast any review featuring severe criticism.

Antony Beevor, the author of Stalingrad and chairman of the Society of Authors, described the LBC book club as a “deeply cynical” exercise. “It puts complaints about bungs given to booksellers to get them to put books in their windows completely in the shade,” he said. “Obviously it is just a way of buying publicity. If you are buying an advertisement it should be made clear that it is an advertisement.”