World Book Club

Nikki Bedi and critic Leila Latif celebrate this year’s London Film Festival with international directors of some of the most playful and provocative upcoming titles. African-American auteur Boots Riley explains the heady cocktail of comedy, shoplifting and politics in his film, ‘I Love Boosters’. From the Philippines, Rafael Manuel, reveals why he chose an elite Manila golf course as the setting...

Nikki Bedi speaks to Sudanese Russian director Suzannah Mirghani about her latest film, Cotton Queen and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic Hanna Flint: Tom Cruise and Oscar winning Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu on their new film, Digger Oscar winning actor Catherine Zeta Jones on reclaiming her Welsh accent in the TV series, Kill Jackie Punjabi-Indian superstar s...

In Berlin, three artists have come together to make some unusual music. They’re not a regular rock band in a commercial recording studio, but in an experimental space, where rare vintage synthesisers from Cold War East Germany sit alongside contemporary instruments. They’re continuing a decades long Berlin tradition of experimental electronic music. In the Studio joins the trio for a couple of day...

Josie Long interviews one of the masters of modern horror, Paul Tremblay. He answers your questions on on of his best loved novels 'A Head Full of Ghosts'. The story centres on the Barretts, a typical New England suburban family, torn apart when their eldest daughter, fourteen-year-old Marjorie, begins to display signs of acute mental illness. When doctors are seemingly unable to offer any relief,...

Nikki Bedi speaks to American poet, author, and artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths about the extraordinary new documentary film Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic William Lee Adams: American Irish actor Saoirse Ronan on her cultural hero, Barbra Streisand French creator and writer Fanny Herrero on her new feature length film, Call My...

Prix Goncourt-winning writer Leïla Slimani this year completed a trilogy of novels; an era-spanning epic family saga set in Morocco, which concludes with the semi-autobiographical I'll Take The Fire. Never one to stay in her comfort zone and compelled to write, she has now embarked on her very first play. She discusses the challenges of adapting Leo Tolstoy’s moralising final novel Resurrection fo...

Nikki Bedi speaks to visionary Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn about his latest movie, Her Private Hell, and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic Zing Tsjeng: Plus, we hear from Oscar-winning French actor Juliette Binoche on her morally complex new film, Queen at Sea British author Candice Carty-Williams on bringing back her much-loved character, Queenie for her new novel Ame...

An edition of In The Studio on the subject that became the dominant story across the world in the summer of 2026. In December 2024, the Scottish poet Leonie Charlton’s house burned to the ground. From that moment, Leonie was obsessed with fire. She saw it everywhere, writing about and mulling over the acute experience of watching everything she and her family had ever owned go up in flames. In ear...

In the south of England, Hastings' traditional Jack in the Green takes place every early May Day weekend and sees a seven foot-tall conical tower of leaves - the Jack - being processed through the old fishing quarters of the town before being led up to a steep hill overlooking the sea where it is 'slain' to release the spirit of summer as the gathered, fervent, crowds take home leaves from him as...

The Bayeux Tapestry has English history stitched into its fabric, depicting the last time the country was invaded, by William the Conqueror in 1066. France has been its home since then. But now thanks to high-level negotiations involving President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles III, it will be on display at the British Museum until next summer. Ten colours of woollen thread were used create batt...

Steve Levine is a multi-award winning British record producer. He has produced albums for stars ranging from Deniece Williams to China Crisis; from Ziggy Marley to Quarterflash; as well as being producer of Culture Club’s first three multi-platinum selling albums from the 1980s. In 1984 Steve won Producer Of The Year at The Brit Awards, and in 1988 he won a Grammy Award for his work with Deniece W...

Harriett talks with Daniyal Mueenuddin about This Is Where the Serpent Lives. Daniyal's debut novel is a rich and compelling portrait of contemporary Pakistan, following the intertwined lives of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are shaped by love, ambition, loyalty and betrayal. Set against the backdrop of a vast rural estate, the novel explores the lives of servants and landowners, dreamer...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes you to the Artists at Work podcast feed, the home of arts and culture from BBC World Service, where World Book Club will be joined by In the Studio and the Arts Hour. In The Studio follows the world’s leading creative figures while they work. Nikki Bedi hosts The Arts Hour, with news of the latest releases from around the world, and in World Book Club Harriett Gilbert put...

Kaarina Parker talks about her debut novel set in ancient Rome - Fulvia. The novel tells the tale of Fulvia, the daughter of a wealthy but inconsequential Roman family. Raised in the country, she yearns for excitement, for power. When her father dies and her inheritance is threatened, Fulvia makes her way to Rome to forge her own fate. There she marries a young aristocrat named Clodius, who is mor...

American author Rachel Kusher talks about her award-winning novel, The Mars Room. The novel follows Romy Hall, as she begins two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, after killing her stalker. The story weaves between the two sides of Romy’s existence. First, the prison world where women struggle for the bare essentials of life. Second, the San Francisco of her yo...

World Book Club welcomes Karin Slaughter to answer your questions about her brutal, heart-rending thriller, The Good Daughter. 28 years after the murder of their mother, another horrific crime forces sisters Sam and Charlie Quinn to confront the truth about the night that shattered their family so long ago. Karin will be asking your questions about her attitude to violence in her novels, the dynam...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes John Connolly to World Book Club to answer your question on his beautiful, but twisted fairy tale - The Book of Lost Things. Set in the Second World War. The novel tells the tale of twelve-year-old David, who mourns the death of his mother while shut up in his attic bedroom with only his books for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him, tempting him... As h...

Octavia Bright talks to Ragnar Jónasson about his shocking thriller, The Darkness. When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is unceremoniously told she is being forced into early retirement, she is given the chance to work on one last Cold Case, anything she likes. The case she chooses to revive is centred on the death of a Russian asylum seeker, a 27-year-old woman who had been found dead on...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes the French author Laurent Binet to the World Book Club studio to answer your questions about his acclaimed novel HHhH. The book tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, and the daring mission carried out by Czech resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Prague. At the same time, Binet places himself into the narr...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes master of suspense, the Canadian author Linwood Barclay in the World Book Club Studio, to answer your questions about his thriller 'Take Your Breath Away'. The story centres on Andrew Mason, whose wife Brie vanished six years ago, making him the prime suspect. But just as he’s beginning to rebuild his life, a mysterious woman resembling Brie suddenly appears, forcing him...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni into the World Book Club studio to discuss her internationally acclaimed novel, The Palace of Illusions. A luminous reimagining of the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharat, The Palace of Illusions traces the life of Princess Panchaali—better known as Draupadi—from her miraculous birth in fire to her destiny as the wife of five...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes bestselling author Philippa Gregory into the World Book Club studio to discuss her celebrated historical novel, The Other Boleyn Girl. This novel, about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, is a vivid portrayal of ambition, love, and betrayal in the Tudor Court, told from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, sister to the ill-fated Anne. As Mary becomes the mistress of King Henr...

Harriett Gilbert welcomes Nigerian author Oyinkan Braithwaite into the World Book Club studio to discuss her internationally bestselling debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer — a darkly comic thriller that has captivated readers around the globe. This is the story of two sisters, Korede, the responsible and overlooked older sibling, and Ayoola, the beautiful younger sister with a deadly secret. When...

Harriett is joined by Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her chilling bestseller Mexican Gothic. The story begins when Noemí Taboada, a glamorous socialite from 1950s Mexico City, receives a desperate letter from her cousin Catalina, claiming her new husband is poisoning her. Unsure if Catalina is mad or truly in danger, Noemí rushes to High Place - a decaying English manor transplanted to the Mexica...

Join us for a special episode of World Book Club as we journey into the fog-shrouded moors of Devon to explore The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle—arguably the most iconic and enduring novel in the Sherlock Holmes canon. First published in 1902, this gothic masterpiece has captivated readers for over a century and remains a cornerstone of detective fiction. Harriett Gilbert is join...