World Book Club

Part stunning literary thriller, part gothic novel, the book The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead. It is a potent mix of a coming-of-age novel and a tragic love story set in Barcelona's post-war years. Harriet Gilbert puts questions from the audience to the author Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Harriett Gilbert talks to David Mitchell about his novel Cloud Atlas.

Richard Ford discusses his classic novel 'The Sportswriter' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.

French Nobel Laureate JMG Le Clezio talks to Harriett Gilbert in front of an invited studio audience about his recently-translated work Desert. Contrasting the beauty of a lost culture in the North African desert with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants, the novel is a rich, poetic and provocative epic about colonization and its legacy, which is still painfully relev...

John Boyne discusses his acclaimed novel 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.

Harriet Gilbert talks to Andrea Levy about Small Island, a heart-warming and tale of love and immigration during World War II.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Indian writer Kiran Desai about her internationally bestselling work The Inheritance of Loss. Winner of the Man Booker prize in 2006, Desai’s novel is a profoundly moving cross-continental saga that sweeps around the globe from the Himalayas to New York City to Cambridge in the UK. Reflecting the author’s own Indian-American upbringing the novel interweaves the grand disr...

James Ellroy discusses his novel American Tabloid with Harriett Gilbert and an invited audience.

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building. It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002. The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of diverse characters who live and work in downtown Cairo. A moving study of politics and power, sex and revenge - centred...

Half a century on from its first publication, G�nter Grass will be talking about The Tin Drum from his home in Lubeck, Germany.

This month Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed American writer Lionel Shriver. Her prizewinning novel, We Need to Talk about Kevin, is the profoundly disturbing story of a boy who, shortly before his 16th birthday, kills seven classmates in a high school massacre. Grippingly but unreliably narrated through the letters from his mother to his absent father, the novel raises questions about culpabili...

In this month's World Book Club Harriett Gilbert will be at London’s South Bank Arts Centre talking to internationally acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about her bestselling novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Winner of the UK Orange Prize for fiction in 2007 Half of a Yellow Sun charts the stories of three intersecting lives turned upside down by the Biafran war in the late 1960s. Village boy Ug...

Harriett Gilbert talks to internationally acclaimed Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi about her classic novel Woman at Point Zero. Recorded in 2009. Written over 30 years ago but still resonating clearly today Woman at Point Zero is a dark and powerful account of the life of a young woman awaiting execution in a Cairo prison for murdering her pimp. Her crime, borne of anger at her lifelong mistreat...

This month Kate Grenville talks about her best-selling novel The Secret River. Her first work for five years since she won the Orange Prize, The Secret River was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize soon after publication. Set in 1806 and based on the true story of Kate’s first Australian ancestor, this is a dramatic and evocative historical novel set between the slums of nineteenth-century London...

Mohsin Hamid talks to Harriett Gilbert and an invited audience about his bestselling novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a sparse, gripping, short novel that tackles the complex issues of Islamic fundamentalism and America's 'war on terror' with sympathy and balance. Book list: Title: The Reluctant Fundamen...

Harriett Gilbert talks to David Guterson about his novel Snow Falling on Cedars.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Toni Morrison about her novel Beloved. Recorded in January 2009. (Photo: BBC)

Harriett Gilbert talks to Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott about his epic poem Omeros, which explores ancient themes of displacement and exile in a modern Caribbean setting.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Alice Walker about her novel The Color Purple.

American writer Annie Proulx talks about her prize-winning novel 'The Shipping News' and her short story 'Brokeback Mountain'.

David Lodge discusses his acclaimed novel 'Nice Work'.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the first publication of the acclaimed African novel ‘Things Fall Apart’, we are repeating the memorable World Book Club with bestselling Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

American author John Irving discusses his bestselling novel 'The World According to Garp', the tragicomic lifestory of the author TS Garp.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Khaled Hosseini about his book The Kite Runner.

Best-selling English writer Sebastian Faulks talks about his heart-rending novel of love and war, Birdsong.