Sam Leith

Sam Leith was a King’s Scholar at Eton College and took a first in English Literature from Magdalen College, Oxford. He has worked in literary journalism for more than 25 years and has been literary editor of the Spectator since 2016, where he hosts their weekly ‘Book Club’ podcast. Before that he was literary editor of the Daily Telegraph, where he also served at different times as comment editor, senior feature writer, New York correspondent and Peterborough editor. He has been a judge of the Man Booker, Samuel Johnson, David Cohen, Costa, Wingate, Forward and Orwell Prizes (among others), and has chaired or interviewed any number of writers on stage, for broadcast and in print. He has also been a columnist for the Guardian, the FT, Prospect, the Evening Standard, Spears, the Daily Telegraph and Wall Street Journal Europe and lead book reviewer for the Daily Mail. His reviews have appeared regularly in the TLS, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the FT, the Sunday Times (London), the Spectator and UnHerd.