About Radio Reads

Radio Reads is a searchable archive of books discussed, reviewed and recommended on radio. If you caught an interview on Radio 4 but missed the title, or you're looking for a gift and trust the taste of a favourite show — this is the place.

The idea had been rattling around for a while, but it was the arrival of large language models that made it practical. AI does the heavy lifting: scanning each episode for book references, extracting titles and authors, and verifying them against Google Books. The whole pipeline — scraping, extraction, publishing — runs automatically.

We currently cover 9 shows across 3 networks: Front Row, Free Thinking, A Good Read and Bookclub on BBC Radio 4, Fresh Air, Book of the Day, The Book Show and Code Switch on NPR and The Splendid Table on American Public Media. New episodes are checked daily and books appear on the site within hours.

Radio Reads is open source. View the code on GitHub.