Clara’s Verdict
I listened to most of Between the Stops on a Sunday morning when I had nowhere particular to be, which turned out to be exactly the right condition for it. Sandi Toksvig’s memoir is structured around the Number 12 bus route from Dulwich to the BBC, and it moves at roughly the pace of that bus: unhurried, occasionally sidetracked, full of things worth looking at out of the window. By the time she was describing Pissarro’s painting of Dulwich Station, I had abandoned any plans for the rest of the morning.
The memoir-by-journey conceit is not new – it has been done in various forms from Laurie Lee to Iain Sinclair – but Toksvig makes it entirely her own. What she has produced is not really a travel book, not really a history of London, and not really a conventional autobiography. It is all three at once, stitched together by the rhythm of stops and the kind of associative thinking that happens when you are watching streets pass a window. The book has the feel of a very long, very good conversation – the kind you have with someone you have known for years, where the subject changes without warning and you follow willingly because the company is the point.
About the Audiobook
Published by Little, Brown in October 2019, Between the Stops runs to 9 hours and 30 minutes and carries a 4.5-star rating from 6 Audible UK reviews. The book is not part of a series. The range of material Toksvig covers is genuinely impressive: the blue plaque for Una Marson, the first black woman programme maker at the BBC; the best Spanish coffee under Southwark’s railway arches; a brief history of lady gangsters at Elephant and Castle; memories of climbing Mount Sinai; Footlights with Emma Thompson; meeting Monica Lewinsky and Grayson Perry; anecdotes about Prince Charles; Bake Off behind the scenes; a real friendship with John McCarthy; and navigating the Zambezi River in her father’s canoe. The connective tissue is always the bus, but the range of digressions means this has the feel of a life lived widely and remembered with pleasure.
The book was written and published during Toksvig’s tenure as QI presenter, and that QI energy is present throughout: the delight in curious facts and unexpected connections, delivered with warmth rather than condescension, with the implicit message that the world is more interesting than you think and the people in it more surprising than they appear.
The Narration
Toksvig narrates her own book, and this is one of those cases where self-narration is not merely acceptable but essential. Her voice is so familiar to British listeners – from decades on radio and television – that hearing someone else read these words would feel actively wrong. She brings a comedian’s timing to the funny moments, genuine vulnerability to the personal ones, and the kind of specificity that comes from actually having sat on the top deck of that bus for years. The 9.5-hour runtime passes without fatigue precisely because her delivery never becomes rote. She sounds, throughout, like someone who is genuinely pleased to be sharing all of this with you.
What Readers Say
Reviewers on Audible UK have been warm without being uncritical. The QI comparison comes up repeatedly: Cgarrod called it educational in the same way as QI, simple for mere mortals to understand with an amusing tone that makes facts stick. Kitlin described it as the sort of book you want to read voraciously but never want to reach the end of, noting that the book complicates easy assumptions about celebrity privilege – that even people in Sandi’s position have dark times and demons to overcome, and she is very honest about that. Rosie B, who actually knows the Number 12 route from a childhood in East Dulwich, found it personally resonant in ways that readers without that specific geography might not fully share – an honest caveat worth passing on. Bagpuss45 noted that it works well in small chunks, fittingly, like reading on a bus, and praised its good flow.
Who Should Listen?
Perfect for fans of Toksvig’s public persona who want something more personal and layered than her broadcasting work typically allows. It will also appeal to London readers with an affection for the city’s history and its specific south-east geography, and to listeners who enjoy memoir that does not proceed in a straight line or feel compelled to arrive at a lesson. Those unfamiliar with the Number 12 route or south-east London geography may find some specific place references wash over them, but Toksvig’s storytelling is strong enough that the emotional and comedic beats land regardless of local knowledge.
Not recommended for listeners who need narrative momentum – this is a book for sitting with, not rushing through, and its pleasures are cumulative rather than dramatic. It is also, quietly, a book about paying attention to the world that surrounds you, and about the argument that some of the greatest trips lie on your own doorstep. That argument lands better if you give it time.
