Mary Beard and her panel of guests - Kate Mosse, Sathnam Sanghera and Dreda Say Mitchell - are in Birmingham, where the Birmingham Literature Festival is under way.
Ahead of the announcement of this year's Man Booker Prize, they discuss who tells us what to read, and are prizes and critics important when choosing a book, or are digital algorithms just as useful?
Mary also investigates how the publishing industry spends money to influence the books we buy.