Bookclub

Max Porter talks about his highly acclaimed novel Lanny, which was nominated for the Booker Prize 2019, and recently released in paperback. Max is one of the most exciting literary talents to emerge in recent years, with Lanny his follow-up novel to his 2015 debut, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Lanny is the story of a family who've recently moved to the countryside and whose village is peopled...

Rebecca Solnit is a leading American essayist and writer. She talks to James Naughtie and a group of invited readers about The Faraway Nearby, her recollections of her mother's advancing Alzheimer's and the power of storytelling. One summer, as their mother was diagnosed with dementia Rebecca's brother decided to harvest all the apricots from their mother’s tree, whether they were ripe or not. He...

American novelist Jenny Offill talks to James Naughtie and readers about her novel Dept. of Speculation. The novel is the story of a relationship between two people whose names we never know. They meet by chance - she’s a writer and he's an artist working with sound. They write to each other and the return address on their envelopes is always Dept of Speculation. Egged on by a friend she calls the...

Marian Keyes talks about one of her most popular novels, Rachel's Holiday. Rachel Walsh is an Irish woman in her late 20s living in New York, but whose life is disintegrating around her. She's lost her dead-end job; her boyfriend Luke has broken up with her; her best friend and flat-mate Brigit can't cope with her behaviour any longer – and the reason for all this, which Rachel just can't see, is...

Journalist James Meek talks about his novel The People's Act of Love, first published in 2005, a bold and imaginative work based in the wilds of Siberia where a strange and violent group of individuals come together with sinister results. Set in a time of great social upheaval, warfare, and terrorism, and against a stark, lawless Siberia at the end of the Russian Revolution, The People’s Act of Lo...

American author Erin Morgenstern talks about her fantasy novel The Night Circus which has become a cult favourite with readers. James Naughtie presents and an invited group of readers ask the questions. It's the story of a mysterious Victorian travelling circus that only opens at night and is constructed entirely in black and white. Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists L...

American author Ben Lerner talks about Leaving the Atocha Station, his first novel narrated by a young man living outside his usual experience. Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's 'research' becom...

To mark Bookclub's 21st birthday Helen Fielding talks about her creation Bridget Jones, with the first novel in the series, Bridget Jones's Diary. Bridget has now become an iconic figure in modern fiction. Bridget Jones started life as a weekly column in the pages of The Independent in 1995, when Fielding worked on the news desk. Refusing to use her own byline, Helen’s column chronicled the life a...

Colson Whitehead talks about his novel The Underground Railroad with James Naughtie and readers The novel is a devastating and imaginative account of a young slave's bid for freedom from a brutal Georgian plantation in the American South. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast among the slaves and as she approaches womanhood is at greater risk o...

Aminatta Forna discusses her novel The Memory of Love with James Naughtie and a group of readers. The Memory of Love has as its background three decades of unrest and violence in Sierra Leone, Aminatta Forna's father's home country and the one where she mostly grew up. The story deals with two sets of relationships, centering around the University teacher Elias Cole fifty years ago, at the time of...

Owen Sheers talks about his novel I Saw A Man with James Naughtie and a group of readers at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea. After the sudden loss of his wife, Michael Turner moves from Wales to London to start again. Living on a quiet street in Hampstead, he develops a close bond with the Nelson family next door: Josh, Samantha and their two young daughters. The friendship between Michael and th...

Gail Honeyman talks about her novel Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine which won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award and has been a runaway success since. Gail was inspired to write her debut novel after reading an article in which a young woman described her lonely life. On the outside, her life was a success, with her own flat and a good job but the reality was she often went home on Friday evenin...

David Szalay discusses his novel All That Man Is which was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2016. All That Man Is is a meditation of modern man told through the stories of nine men from across Europe, who are all at different stages of their lives. David says the three ages of man was present in his mind as the nine stories fall naturally into youth, middle age and older age. The characters...

Louise Doughty talks about her novel Apple Tree Yard, which went on to be a popular BBC television drama. It is the story of Yvonne, a high-flying married scientist, whose personal life is, by turns, erotic and troubled and, eventually, disastrous. Completely out of character, Yvonne has consensual sex with a stranger in the Palace of Westminster. So begins an affair with a man called Mark which i...

Richard Holmes talks about The Age of Wonder, his non-fiction account of the Romantic age, as scientific and artistic thinking began to diverge. In the book he describes the scientific ferment that swept through Britain in the late-18th century and tells the stories of the celebrated innovators and their great scientific discoveries: from telescopic sight and the discovery of Uranus to Humphrey Da...

Simon Mawer talks about Tightrope, an espionage story featuring the enigmatic agent Marian Sutro which is set during World War II and the years into the Cold War. Tightrope opens as Marian returns to England having survived Ravensbruck concentration camp. She had been parachuted into France by the Special Operations Executive and captured by the Germans in Paris. As peace comes Marian finds it imp...

Alice Oswald, Radio 4's Poet in Residence, discusses her collection Falling Awake which won the Costa Poetry Prize 2016. Falling Awake explores two of Alice Oswald’s recurring preoccupations - with the natural world, and with the myths of more ancient civilizations. Alice studied Classics at university and on graduation became a gardener. Homer, she says, made her a gardener because in the ancient...

Jessie Burton discusses The Miniaturist, her debut novel which was the subject of a bidding war between 11 publishers at the 2013 London Book Fair. Set in Amsterdam in 1686–87, the novel was inspired by Petronella Oortman's doll's house which is on display at the Rijksmuseum. Jessie explains how she created her own fictional version of Nella Oortman for the novel. At the age of 18, Nella marries a...

Simon Armitage talks to James Naughtie about his translation of the Middle English epic.

American author Meg Wolitzer discusses her novel The Interestings, which follows a group of friends from teenage years through to middle age and marriage and children. Aged 15, the group first meet at on a warm night at Spirit in the Woods summer camp in 1974. They drink, smoke pot and share their dreams and vow always to be interesting. Although not strictly an autobiographical novel, the idea fo...

The Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser.

Andrew Michael Hurley discusses his book The Loney which won the Costa First Novel Award in 2015. Recorded with an audience at the Liverpool Literary Festival and presented by James Naughtie. First published in a print run of just 300 copies by a small press, The Loney went on to win The Costa First Novel Award and Book of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards 2015. This gothic novel is set...

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard discusses A Death in the Family, which is the first part of My Struggle, his series of memoirs which have a devoted following. Already a successful novelist in his native Norway, almost ten years ago Knausgaard embarked on a huge project: a first person narrative about his life. In A Death in the Family he writes with painful honesty about his childhood and tee...

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary