Susanna Clarke won the Women's Prize for Fiction with her novel Piranesi. She joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to answer their questions about this intriguing, tantalising novel.

Bestselling novelist Ken Follett joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his historical novel A Column of Fire, the third in his hugely successful Kingsbridge series. It’s a tale of spying and intrigue, as Elizabeth I battles to keep her throne in the face of fierce religious division across Europe.

Ayobami Adebayo talks to James Naughtie and readers about her novel, Stay With Me, a moving story of loss and motherhood. Set against the backdrop of tumultuous political events in Nigeria, it tells the story of Yejide and Akin, whose marriage is childless. The novel, which is narrated by them both, explores the pressure to have a child, the toll it takes on their relationship and the profound emotional burden of desperately wanting to become a parent. Ayobami answers readers questions about the inspiration behind Stay With Me and how she inhabited the minds of her characters. Presenter: James Naughtie Producer : Nicola HollowayNext Bookclub recordings - both at 1830 in Broadcasting House, London 14 August - Ken Follett on A Column of Fire 25 September - Susanna Clarke on Piranesi

Marlon James answers readers' questions about his award-winning novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings. The novel, which is narrated by multiple characters, opens in Jamaica in the run-up to the 1976 election. Kingston is riven by violence as competing gangs, some supported by the US government, compete for territory and control of the drugs trade. The novel is based on real events, including a planned assassination attempt on Bob Marley. Marlon James talks to readers about writing multiple characters, his approach to describing violence and how he sees the book now, ten years after publication. Forthcoming recordings at 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House in London 10 July - Ayobami Adebayo on Stay With Me 14 August - Ken Follett on A Column of Fire 25 September - Susanna Clarke on Piranesi

Celebrated novelist and short story writer Lucy Caldwell joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss These Days. Set in 1941, it focusses on the lives of two sisters living through the Belfast Blitz.Lucy talks about the inspiration for her novel, her research and writing it during the pandemic.

James Naughtie and readers quiz Nicholas Shakespeare about his book, Six Minutes In May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister. It chronicles the dramatic political and military events of 1940 which led to the momentous Norway Debate and Chamberlain’s resignation. Upcoming recordings at BBC Broadcasting House in London: Wednesday 15 May at 1300: Lucy Caldwell on These Days Thursday 6 June at 1245: Marlon James on A Brief History of Seven Killings

Clare Chambers talks to James Naughtie and readers about her bestselling novel, Small Pleasures. Set in the London suburbs in the 1950s, it tells the story of Jean Swinney, a journalist who is asked to investigate a letter sent to her paper, from a mother claiming her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean meets the mother, Gretchen; her husband, Howard and daughter Margaret and is drawn into their family life. Her investigations soon expand both her world, and her heart. Upcoming recordings, at BBC Broadcasting House in London: Wednesday 24 April at 1800 - Nicholas Shakespeare on Six Minutes In MayWednesday 15 May at 1300 - Lucy Caldwell on These Days. Thursday 6 June at 1245 - Marlon James on A Brief History of Seven Killings Wednesday 10 July at 1830 - Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ on Stay With Me Email [email protected] to take part. Over 18s only.

Bookclub travels to Northumberland to meet best-selling crime writer Ann Cleeves. She joins James Naughtie and listeners to discuss her novel, Hidden Depths: Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets out to solve two murders which are apparently linked, although there are no clues to connect the victims.Upcoming recordings - 1830 BBC Broadcasting House in London : 26 March - Clare Chambers on Small Pleasures 24 April - Nicholas Shakespeare on 6 Minutes In May Email [email protected] to take part. Over 18s only.

Graeme Macrae Burnet joins James Naughtie and readers to reveal the secrets behind his award-winning historical novel, His Bloody Project. Set in the Scottish Highlands in 1869, His Bloody Project explores crime, justice and retribution through the confessions of a young man accused of murder, and an account of his trial.Upcoming recordings at BBC Broadcasting House in London: Tuesday 26 March 1830 - Clare Chambers discusses her bestselling novel, Small Pleasures.Wednesday 24 April 1830- Nicholas Shakespeare discusses Six Minutes In May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister

Marking 200 years since the birth of Wilkie Collins, crime writer, and Collins admirer, Elly Griffiths discusses one of his best known works -The Moonstone - with James Naughtie and a group of readers.

Donal Ryan discusses his book The Spinning Heart with a group of readers, It's a powerful, moving novel told through twenty one individual voices. Set in Ireland in the immediate aftermath of the Celtic Tiger 'boom' years, each character reveals how the sudden and dramatic 'bust' affected their lives. At the centre is Bobby Mahon, once a respected and reliable foreman for a building company who suddenly loses his job when the firm's owner disappears overnight. Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Nicola HollowayUpcoming recordings: 13 December at 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House, London - Elly Griffiths is our guide to The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 24 January 2024 at 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House, London - Graeme Macrae Burnet discusses His Bloody Project Email [email protected] to take part.

Katherine Heiny answers readers questions about Standard Deviation, her hilarious novel about marriage, parenting and the road not travelled. Audra is married to Graham, who is divorced from Elspeth. While Audra is sociable, loving, outspoken, tactless, kind and funny, Elspeth is contained, reserved, controlled and reticent. Despite loving Audra, Graham begins to wonder if his life should have taken a different path. Katherine Heiny reveals the real-life moments that inspired the book, her love of the funny side of life and why she can never pass up on writing a good joke. Upcoming recordings at BBC Broadcasting House, London Wednesday 15 November at 1300 - Donal Ryan on The Spinning Heart Wednesday 13 December at 1830 - Elly Griffiths is our guide to The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Email [email protected] to take part.

Bernardine Evaristo joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss Mr Loverman, her 2013 novel about Barrington Walker, a married man with a secret life. Ever since his teens in Antigua, Barry has been in love with Morris and despite both men moving to London, marrying and having children, their love affair has never faltered. Now he’s in his seventies, Barry decides it’s time to tell the truth. It’s a funny, poetic, moving novel about love, family, prejudice and forgiveness. Upcoming recordings: Thursday 12 October at midday, BBC Broadcasting House in London - Katherine Heiny on Standard Deviation Email [email protected] to take part.

James Naughtie is joined by Denise Mina to talk about her book The Long Drop. This intriguing true-crime story is set in 1950s Glasgow when notorious serial killer Peter Manuel spread fear throughout the city. The Long Drop alternates between Manuel's trial and a extraordinary night he spent with Glaswegian businessman William Watt, whose own family Peter Manuel was suspected of killing. Despite this, the two men form an unlikely alliance and tour the bars and dives of Glasgow together. Recorded at The Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh. Upcoming recordings at BBC Broadcasting House in London: 21 September at 1300 - Bernardine Evaristo on Mr Loverman 12 October at 1200 noon - Katherine Heiny on Standard Deviation. Email [email protected] to take part

Mick Herron answers readers' questions about his novel, Slow Horses, the first in his hugely popular Slough House series. In it we meet the 'Slow Horses’ for the first time; failed spies who instead of being pensioned off, find themselves working in Slough House, near the Barbican in London. Here, they carry out menial administrative tasks of little or no importance, led by their offensive, vulgar boss Jackson Lamb. In this novel, the Slow Horses find themselves unexpectedly at the centre of the action. Our next recordings: Thursday 17th August: Jenni Fagan on her novel Luckenbooth . 7pm at The Portobello Bookshop, Portobello, Edinburgh. (Free tickets are available via the Bookshop's website) At BBC Broadcasting House, London: Thursday 21 September at 1300 - Bernardine Evaristo on Mr Loverman Thursday 12 October at 1200 noon - Katherine Heiny on Standard Deviation. Email [email protected] to take part

To mark our 25th anniversary, Julian Barnes returns to Bookclub. He’s answering readers' questions about his Booker-shortlisted novel Arthur and George. It's based on real events and tells the story of Arthur Conan Doyle’s campaign to overturn the conviction of a young solicitor, George Edalji, Upcoming recording: Thursday 13 July 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House in London - Mick Herron on Slow Horses. Thursday 17 August 1900 at The Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh - Jenni Fagan on Luckenbooth

Mary Lawson joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to answer questions about her novel, Crow Lake. An international bestseller, it tells the story of four siblings, orphaned by a road accident who have to find a new way to live as a family. The story is narrated by Kate, looking back at that dramatic rupture in her childhood. As she tells her story, Kate comes to understand not only how it affected her, but also her siblings - big brothers Luke and Matt, and baby sister Bo. Meanwhile, on a neighbouring farm, the Pye family faced their own crisis.... Upcoming recordings 13 June 1830 BBC Broadcasting House in London - Julian Barnes on Arthur and George 13 July 1830 BBC Broadcasting House in London - Mick Herron on Slough House email [email protected]

James Naughtie and readers are joined by novelist Sarah Winman, answering questions about her novel Tin Man. It's a moving and intimate portrait of three characters, Michael, Ellis and Annie. They variously fall in love, and fall out of touch, but are always deeply connected. Tin Man is a short and powerful novel about love, loss and kindness. Our next Bookclub recordings are with Mary Lawson, discussing her novel Crow Lake, at 1300 on 24 May at BBC Broadcasting House in London. Julian Barnes discussing Arthur and George at 1830 on Tuesday 13 June at BBC Broadcasting House, London. email [email protected] to take part

Tan Twan Eng talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about The Garden of Evening Mists. A lyrical novel set largely in 1950s Malay (now Malaysia), it tells the story of Yun Ling, imprisoned by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, and Aritomo, a master gardener who once worked for the Emperor of Japan. It's a complex and moving story about forgetting, forgiveness and mercy. Our next Bookclub recordings: (email [email protected] to join us) Wednesday 19th April at 1300 at BBC Broadcasting House in London. Sarah Winman will be answering questions about her novel Tin Man. Wednesday 24 May at 1300 at BBC Broadcasting House in London Mary Lawson on Crow Lake

Nadifa Mohamed joins James Naughtie and readers to talk about her award-winning novel The Fortune Men. Set in Cardiff in the 1950s, the novel is based on the real-life trial of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali seaman accused of murder. It's a powerful, moving read and a dazzling portrait of a proud, bewildered young man and his life in Cardiff's Tiger Bay. Upcoming recordings: 15 March at 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House, London: Tan Twan Eng will be answering questions about his novel The Garden of Evening Mists. 19 April at 1300 at BBC Broadcasting House, London: Sarah Winman on her novel Tin Man Email [email protected] to come along.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Cal Flyn about her acclaimed book, Islands of Abandonment, an exploration of places which have been reclaimed by nature. She talks about her travels to Cyprus, the Orkney Islands, First World War battlefields in France, and beyond, chronicling the fightback that plants have staged once humans have left. She reveals why finding hope in even the most desolate places is important to her, and why it's ok to leave lawns unmown. Our next recordings are both in-person events at BBC Broadcasting House in London. 16 February 2023 at 18.30 Nadifa Mohamed will be answering questions about The Fortune Men. 15 March 2023 at 1830 Tan Twan Eng on The Garden of Evening Mists To come along and take part, email [email protected]

Historian Ross King answers listener questions about his book Brunelleschi's Dome. An incredible story of one man's determination to build an apparently impossible structure, it's a tale of ingenuity, artistic rivalries, and single-minded obsession. Although building had started on Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore in the late thirteenth century, it wasn't until 1418 that local goldsmith Filippo Brunelleschi came up with an audacious way of constructing the magnificent dome, which still dominates the Florence skyline today. But as Brunelleschi's Dome reveals, the architect faced huge obstacles and opposition along the way. Our next Bookclub recordings: 18/01/23: Cal Flyn will be talking about her book, Islands of Abandonment. 1300 at BBC Broadcasting House, London. 16/02/23: Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men. 1830 at BBC Broadcasting House, London Email [email protected] to send in a question, or come along.

James Naughtie is joined by writer A J Pearce and a group of listeners, as she answers their questions about her bestselling novel Dear Mrs Bird. Set in London in the 1940s, it’s the story of Emmy who has ambitions to be an intrepid war reporter, but instead finds herself working as a secretary on the agony aunt pages of an old-fashioned women’s magazine. Her main duty is opening and sorting the post but Emmy just can't resist sharing her opinions... Dear Mrs Bird is a funny, heart-warming novel which does not shy away from the true horrors of war. Our next Bookclub recordings: Ross King, on 8th December. He'll be taking us to Italy with his book Brunelleschi's Dome. To take part, in person or online, email [email protected] 1300 on 18 January at BBC Broadcasting House: Cal Flyn on Islands of Abandonment. email [email protected] to come along

Juan Gabriel Vasquez answers audience questions about The Sound of Things Falling. Set in Colombia, the novel examines the personal and private impact of the drug wars that ravaged the country during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. It's the story of a strange friendship between two men, Antonio and Ricardo, told through Antonio's eyes. He sets out to investigate his friend's mysterious life, after Ricardo is murdered. The Sound of Things Falling is a powerful read about memory and storytelling, and about the lasting impact of living in a country ruled by violence and criminality. To take part in Bookclub email [email protected] Next guests: 24/11/22 A J Pearce answering your questions about her debut Dear Mrs Bird. 08/12/22 Ross King takes us to Italy. He'll be talking about his book Brunelleschi's Dome: The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence

Curtis Sittenfeld answers listener questions about American Wife, a novel which follows Alice Lindgren's path from school librarian to First Lady, and is based on the life of former First Lady Laura Bush. Our next recording is at Broadcasting House in London on 13th October 2022. Juan Gabriel Vasquez will talking about his novel, The Sound Of Things Falling. To take part and ask a question, email [email protected]

In a special programme first broadcast in 2013, Hilary Mantel discusses Bring Up the Bodies, her second Man Booker Prize-winning novel with James Naughtie and his Bookclub audience. England, 1535. A one-time mercenary, master-politician, lawyer and doting father, Thomas Cromwell has risen from commoner to become King Henry VIII's chief adviser. He learnt everything he knew from his mentor Cardinal Wolsey, whose place he has taken. Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her path to Henry's side cleared by Cromwell. But Henry remains without a male heir, and the conflict with the Catholic Church has left England dangerously isolated as France and the Holy Roman Empire manoeuvre for position. Mantel charts how the King begins to fall in love with the seemingly plain Jane Seymour at her family home of Wolf Hall; how Cromwell must negotiate an increasingly dangerous court as he charms, bullies and manipulates nobility, commoners and foreign powers alike to satisfy Henry, and advance his own ambitions. Hilary Mantel was the first author to win two Man Booker Prizes with consecutive novels. She discusses Bring Up the Bodies with Jim and her readers at the Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival in Devon - and gives tantalising insights into the final part of the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. Producer : Dymphna Flynn

Bookclub travels to Edinburgh where Scotland's Makar Kathleen Jamie answers readers questions about her Selected Poems, and her writing life. Many poems here celebrate the natural world; Kathleen Jamie writes about animals and plants with a forensic and empathetic eye, often focussing on unloved and unsung creatures like daisies, spiders and frogs. In this collection there are also poems about the struggles of motherhood, and memories of her Scottish childhood - her friends, her family, her school days. This programme was recorded in front of an audience at Greenside Parish Church in Edinburgh . The next Bookclub recordings are with Curtis Sittenfeld (14/09/22) answering questions about American Wife in a virtual recording, and Juan Gabriel Vasquez (13/10/22) on The Sound of Things Falling , at an in-person event. Contact [email protected] to take part in either recording.

For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, James Naughtie is joined by an in-person audience who are putting their questions to Kevin Barry, about his novel Night Boat To Tangier. It’s a darkly comic, melancholy novel about two gangsters, Maurice and Charlie, waiting in the port of Algeciras, hoping to spot Maurice’s runaway daughter. And as they wait, they reminisce and swap stories. Our next Bookclub is recording at Greenside Parish Church in Edinburgh on Thursday 25th August at 7pm. Our guest is Kathleen Jamie, Scotland's Makar, talking about her Selected Poems and her writing life. For more details, and to book a place, email [email protected]

John Preston talks to a group of readers about his novel The Dig, a fictional take on the excavations at Sutton Hoo. Set in the summer of 1939, with war looming, the novel re-imagines this celebrated discovery of Anglo-Saxon treasure, The extraordinary finds attracted the attention of eminent professors and national museums but the original discovery was the work of a self taught local archaeologist, Basil Brown. And in The Dig, Basil is given his chance to tell his story, as one of the narrators. To get in touch with us at Bookclub and take part in any of our recordings, email [email protected] Our next guest is Kevin Barry. This will be an in-person event at BBC Broadcasting House on Wednesday 13th July at 7.30pm. Please email us if you would like to come along and ask a question, Kevin will be discussing Night Boat to Tangier.

Diana Evans answers listener questions about Ordinary People, her page-turner of a novel about contemporary black middle class experience in the London of today. An absorbing tale of two couples and their family, the novel documents their struggles with identity, parenthood, sex, grief, ageing, friendship and love. Next month's book: The Dig by John Preston. Email [email protected] to join the virtual recording or send in a question in advance.

Nick Harkaway answers listener questions about his extraordinary novel Angelmaker. A blend of fantasy, thriller and adventure the novel tells the stories of a young, disillusioned clock maker Joe Spork, former spy, ninety year old Edie Bannister, and the strange events that bring them together. Next month's book: Ordinary People by Diana Evans. Email [email protected] to ask a question.

Novelist Karen Joy Fowler joins James Naughtie to answer listener questions about her Booker shortlisted novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, a surprising story about an unusual family, and the lasting impact of an unconventional childhood. Narrator Rosemary looks back fondly on her early years with her sister Fern, but all is not as it seems. The novel has an unexpected twist and this programme contains spoilers. Our next read on Bookclub is Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway. Do get in touch if you'd like to take part.

Sarah Moss joins James Naughtie to answer listener questions about her novel The Tidal Zone - a story of healthcare, parenting, and the echoes of the past. Adam and Emma are parents to 15 year old Miriam and 8 year old Rose. One day, Miriam collapses at school: her heart briefly stopped beating. She is rushed to hospital. The Tidal Zone considers the impact of this event on Miriam, and all of her family, as they spend time in hospital and then learn to live with what has happened. Interwoven with this story of contemporary family life, is the story of the re-building of Coventry Cathedral after the Second World War, the subject of Adam's academic research. The novel ask questions about how we rebuild and recover after trauma, and how we learn to live with history, both personal and political. Our next recordings for Bookclub are with Karen Joy Fowler and Nick Harkaway. Follow the links on the website to take part and ask a question.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Stacey Halls about her novel The Foundling, set in 18th century London. It's the story of Bess, who gives up her new born baby to the Foundling Hospital. When Bess returns six years later to claim her child, she finds that her daughter has been taken by someone else. Stacey answers listener questions about motherhood; her research; the sights and smells of Georgian London and writing from the point of view of two women, who are both fighting for the same child. Our March guest on Bookclub is Sarah Moss, talking about The Tidal Zone. Do read along with us. To find out about future guests click Take Part In A Recording on our website. Coming up, James will be joined by Karen Joy Fowler and Nick Harkaway.

James Naughtie and Bookclub readers talk to Abir Mukherjee about A Rising Man, the first in his Wyndham and Bannerjee detective series, set in Calcutta during the time of the Raj. Sam Wyndham is new to the police force and new to India. His sergeant, Bannerjee, offers him invaluable help not only with investigating a murder but also with navigating the complex political and social landscape of Calcutta in 1919. James Naughtie’s next guest on Bookclub will be Stacey Halls, talking about her novel The Foundling. Do send your questions via the website and join the recording. Image copyright: Nick Tucker

James Naughtie is joined by bestselling writer Rachel Joyce who is answering listener questions about The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. This moving, heartwarming story follows Harold as one day he impulsively sets off on a walk from Devon to Northumberland to visit his long lost friend Queenie; despite having no map, no plan, and no decent walking boots. While he tramps across England, Harold reflects on his life, especially his troubled relationship with his wife and son. Our next Bookclub guest is Abir Mukherjee who will be answering questions about A Rising Man - the first in his award winning Wyndham and Banerjee series, set in India during the Raj. Contact us via the Bookclub website to join the recording in December.

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde is set in three different times and in three different countries - nineteenth century England, present day Ohio and Beijing at the end of the 21st century. Each storyline considers the lot of bees and beekeepers: William is designing a new type of hive, George; in Ohio, is trying to stick with traditional methods even though beekeeping and farming are becoming increasingly industrialised and Tao, in 2098, works as a human pollinator as all all the bees have died out. Maja Lunde joins James Naughtie, and Bookclub listeners to talk about this complex , timely novel; about the ecological beliefs which drive her writing and her hopes for the future. In November, Rachel Joyce will be joining James Naughtie for the next Bookclub recording, answering your questions about her bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Do get in touch via the website (click Take Part In A Recording) if you would like to ask Rachel a question.

Anthony Doerr talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about his novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Set largely in St Malo in the 1940's, It tells the twin stories of Werner and Marie Laure,. They are on opposite sides during World War Two, but find themselves linked by a love of radio, and storytelling. Meanwhile, a Nazi officer is hunting down a diamond, which is said to be cursed. Anthony Doerr talks about how he tackled writing this highly structured, sweeping, adventure-filled tale. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Nicola Holloway November's Bookclub Choice : The History of Bees by Maja Lunde . Email us at [email protected] if you have a question for Maja.

Lissa Evans talks to James Naughtie and a group of her readers about her novel Old Baggage. Set in 1928, it tells the story of Matilda Simpkin, who was an activist during the Women’s Suffrage Campaign. Jailed five times, Mattie marched, sang, gave speeches and smashed windows, and nothing since then has had the same depth or excitement. After a chance meeting with 15-year-old Ida, she sets out on a new venture, starting a girls’ club to help young women gain and maintain independence. Old Baggage was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Literature 2019. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn For details on how to take part in Bookclub email us at [email protected] October’s Bookclub Choice : All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam is set fifty years ago, during the Bangladesh War of Independence. The conflict is seen through the eyes of Rehana, a fiercely protective mother, whose children join the fighting. Rehana, though not a natural revolutionary, becomes involved in the conflict herself, determined to do whatever it takes to keep her family intact. Tahmima Anam joins James Naughtie to answer questions from readers about this powerful, award winning book.

Francis Spufford’s novel Golden Hill won the Costa Book Award, the Ondaatje Prize and the Desmond Elliot Prize and was shortlisted for a host of others. It’s been described by critics as ‘a crackerjack novel of old Manhattan’, ‘Like a newly discovered novel by Henry Fielding with extra material by Martin Scorsese’, and ‘utterly captivating’. Francis joins James Naughtie and a group of his readers to discuss this novel set in the embryo metropolis of 18th Century New York. Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Allegra McIlroy August’s Bookclub choice: A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

Melissa Harrison is an acclaimed nature writer, novelist and podcaster. She joins James Naughtie and a group of her readers to discuss her novel All Among the Barley, set in Suffolk in the mid 1930’s. Centring on the experiences of teenage Edie Mather whose family have been farming the land for generations, the novel touches on the backdrop of shifting political and social change, as well as the dramatic change that’s just starting in the English countryside. Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Allegra McIlroy July’s Bookclub choice: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Australian author Liane Moriarty about her New York Times bestselling novel Big Little Lies. Set in the sunny world of Pirriwee Public Primary School in the beautiful North Shore area of Sydney, there’s a dark thread of hidden violence running under the surface of the novel. Liane Moriarty sets an unexpected murder against a wittily written chorus of gossipy and competitive school parents, effortlessly intertwining the darker undercurrents with a breezy and humorous style. The novel has since been adapted for television with an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep. Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Allegra McIlroy June’s Bookclub choice: All Among the Barley by Melissa Harisson

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Amor Towles about his bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow. The 30 year story of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov takes in the sweep of Russian history from the period just after the Russian Revolution, through the Stalinist purges, and heading towards Kruschev’s thaw – all experienced thorough the lens of Rostov’s long house arrest in The Metropol Hotel. To join in future Bookclub programmes email us: [email protected] Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Allegra McIlroy May’s Bookclub choice: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to award winning poet, novelist and essayist Kei Miller about his Forward Prize Winning poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. The collection is set on Jamaica and structured through conversations between the map maker, trying to organise and lay down history with a deep conviction of his own rational knowledge, and the rastaman, trying to explain a more spiritual way of knowing. Kei talks to James and the audience about his own multiple identities which are played out in the collection, and reveals which of these characters most represents himself... (and which of them wins the argument!). Presenter: James Naughtie Producer: Allegra McIlroy April’s Bookclub choice: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to acclaimed Irish crime writer Tana French about her novel The Wych Elm, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2018, and a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, The New York Times Book Review, Amazon, The Boston Globe, LitHub, Vulture, Slate, Elle, Vox, and Electric Literature. The Wych Elm is the first stand-alone novel from the author of the Dublin Murder series – and Tana French has been celebrated by writers including Stephen King, Gillian Flynn and John Boyne. Twentysomething Toby has always thought of himself as lucky, and he’s been mostly untouched by the darker side of life, until a traumatic attack leaves him permanently changed both physically and emotionally. After returning to the family home which has always been a haven to him, he finds himself peeling back the layers of hidden secrets and trying to understand both his family history, and his own role in it. To join in future Bookclub programmes email us [email protected] Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Allegra McIlroy Image copyright: Jessica Ryan March's Bookclub Choice : The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion by Kei Miller (2014)

Kazuo Ishiguro, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, discusses his novel Never Let Me Go with James Naughtie and a group of invited readers. In one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and other school friends growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go is her attempt to come to terms with her childhood and adolescence at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School as well as the fate that always awaited her and her friends outside in the wider world. To join in future Bookclub programmes email us [email protected] Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub Choice : The Wych Elm by Tana French (2018)

David Vann discusses his novel Legend of a Suicide with James Naughtie and this month's group of readers. Legend of a Suicide is an intimate and profound account of a family tragedy, told in six linked stories that deal with the complicated misunderstandings between a son and his father, and describes the love, guilt and the painful understanding that begins to come with adolescence. When it was published twelve years ago this autobiographical work of fiction was lauded as a groundbreaker; based on the events in David’s own life, and the death of his father when he was just 13, Legend of a Suicide is a tough but beautiful read. And in the novella at the heart of the book - the longest of the six sections – the reader is unlikely to forget what it's like to spend time in the loneliness of Sukkwan Island in Alaska. To take part in future Bookclubs, email [email protected] January 2021's Bookclub Choice : Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : David Vann Producer : Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager : Donald MacDonald

Tayari Jones discusses An American Marriage, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019. The novel tells the story of Roy and Celestial, a newly wed and successful African-American couple in Atlanta whose marriage is tested when the husband is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. The book tackles the shadow cast by the judicial system over many African-American lives. Tayari tells Bookclub how the novel was inspired by an exchange she overheard between a man and a woman at a shopping mall. "The woman said - Roy, you wouldn't have waited on me for seven years. And he said, This wouldn't have happened to you in the first place." Presented by James Naughtie and including questions from this month's group of readers. To take part in future Bookclubs, email [email protected] December's Bookclub Choice : Legend of a Suicide by David Vann (2009) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Tayari Jones Producer : Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager : Emma Harth

Joseph O'Connor talks about his novel of Irish emigration at the time of the Famine, Star of the Sea with James Naughtie and readers. In the winter of 1847, the Star of the Sea sets sails from Ireland for New York. Among the refugees are a maidservant, a bankrupt aristocrat, an aspiring novelist and a maker of revolutionary ballads. As we learn each of their stories, we also learn how each is connected more deeply than they know. The novel has its roots in Connemara, with the characters being connected to the land and the sea. At the heart of the story is the threatening figure of Pius Mulvey – the balladeer and adventurer who turns bad as the story unfolds. As one reader asks, is Pius Mulvey Jack the Lad, or is he Jack the Ripper? Mulvey stalks the decks of the ship like some kind of embodiment of the tragedy that’s overtaken the old country. Joseph O’Connor explains how he created the character of Pius, his ambivalent relationship with Dickens who has a cameo role in the book, and how he has a connection to Connemara from childhood holidays; plus his hopes that the novel will keep the story of the Famine alive for the next generation of Irish people. To take part in our Bookclub recording with Tana French on the Wych Elm email [email protected] November's Bookclub Choice : An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (2018) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Joseph O'Connor Producer : Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager : Tim Heffer

Oyinkan Braithwaite talks about her novel My Sister, The Serial Killer, a story full of deadpan wit and dark humour about two sisters in Lagos. Korede is bitter and jealous of her beautiful sister Ayoola, who is the favourite child. A kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where Korede works is the bright spot in her life and she dreams of the day when he will realize they're perfect for each other. But after Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row dies, and the doctor asks Korede for her sister's phone number, she knows that things can't stay the same. My Sister, the Serial Killer was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 and longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019. Oyinkan Braithwaite talks to presenter James Naughtie and a group of readers from her home in Lagos, Nigeria To take part in future Bookclubs, email [email protected] October's Bookclub Choice : Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor (2003) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Oyinkan Braithwaite Producer : Dymphna Flynn

James Naughtie and Louise Welsh discussed Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

August's edition is a Classic Bookclub - Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped - and is part of BBC Radio 4's ongoing support for students during the Covid-19 crisis. In the absence of Stevenson, our guide to the book is author Louise Welsh, who has written an opera inspired by him. Kidnapped is one Stevenson’s best loved titles. It’s an historical adventure novel set in Scotland after the Jacobite rising of 1745 and tells the adventures of the recently orphaned sixteen year old David Balfour, as he journeys through the dangerous Scottish Highlands in an attempt to regain his rightful inheritance. James Naughtie says : "As a young boy Robert Louis Stevenson was my guide to adventure. Kidnapped was always at hand and, like Treasure Island, it introduced me to great story-telling. A boy alone in a country torn apart by war, betrayed by a sad but wicked uncle, and a coming-of-age through adversity. Reading it again, I can still feel the thrill of the first time. That's what great books do". Author Louise Welsh has said “I think if you were to stop any Scottish writer and ask them to list their top three writers that made them want to write they would mention Stevenson. He’s always been number one for me.” Bookclub on Kidnapped is recorded as always with an audience of readers, including members of the RLS Club, local school children and university students, at the Hawes Inn, Queensferry, where Stevenson is thought to have started the novel in 1866. The programme was first broadcast in November 2016. An unabridged reading of Kidnapped is available on BBC Sounds. Presenter James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Louise Welsh Producer : Dymphna Flynn September's Bookclub Choice : My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2019)

Scott Turow talks about his first thriller, Presumed Innocent, with James Naughtie and a group of readers. The novel was first published in Britain in 1987 and Scott's books have since sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. The novel was seen as groundbreaking as it spawned a whole generation of legal thrillers. Presumed Innocent is the story of lawyer Rusty Sabich who's investigating the brutal murder of a beautiful and ambitious female colleague, Carolyn Polhemus. In the first twist of many in the novel, Rusty, who is married, was once Carolyn's lover, a fact he tries to conceal from his boss, the Prosecuting Attorney. In a further twist Rusty finds himself on trial for the murder, and the evidence against him mounts. Rusty is defended by Sandy Stern, who goes on to appear in Scott Turow's subsequent books, including his new novel, The Last Trial. To join in a future Bookclub discussion email us at [email protected] August's Bookclub Choice : Kidnapped by RL Stevenson Presenter: James Naughtie Invited Guest: Scott Turow Producer : Dymphna Flynn

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 by the living and the dead. Lanny is a young boy with a gift for friendship, who adores roaming free in the countryside, making art, leaving traces of enchantment in the closely woven lives around him. Observing it all, and orchestrating a tapestry of village voices, is Dead Papa Toothwort, a sinister and mythological creature who has woken from his slumber and who follows the boy Lanny in his daily life, seeing him as a kind of kindred spirit. It is a novel full of ideas about the environment, art, village life, parenting, as well as the strangeness of every day life. Presented by James Naughtie and including contributions and questions from an invited group of readers. To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] July's Bookclub choice : Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow Presenter: James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn Production Co-ordinator : Belinda Naylor Studio Manager : Matilda Macari

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 delivered over 100lbs of the fruit to Rebecca and she found herself under deadline to sort them – to throw them out, make chutney, or make preserves. The huge pile of fruit on her floor reminded her of the tasks in fairytales, like the girl in Rumpelstilksen who must spin a room full of straw into gold overnight; the mountain of sand which must be moved by teaspoon. And at the heart of The Faraway Nearby is the voice of Rebecca's own mother, and how she is losing her memory and her own stories. By sharing her own history, like her difficult relationship with her mother, or her trip to Iceland, Rebecca Solnit also entertains a wide range of other stories: arctic explorers, Che Guevara among the leper colonies, Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein. She explores the ways we are all connected by empathy, narrative and imagination, and talks about how this month's book choice resonates at a time when we many of us are faraway from those we love. To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] June's Bookclub choice : Lanny by Max Porter (2019) Presenter: James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Rebecca Solnit Producer : Dymphna Flynn

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 Philosopher they end up living together in a bug-infested apartment and have a daughter. But eventually this curiously-triggered relationship starts to falter; he has an affair and in the end The Protagonist, who now calls herself The Wife, realises she has to make the best of what life has thrown at her. Jenny talks about the structure and form of the novel, why the characters have no names - and what makes her happy. To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] May's Bookclub choice : The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit (2016) Presenter: James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn

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 that she's become addicted to drugs and alcohol. Her 'holiday' is a trip into a rehab clinic in Dublin - the Cloisters - where she imagines she'll get away from it all, but discovers more about herself then she expected. Marian Keyes's book has been an international phenomenon - and maybe one reason, apart from its wit, is that it tells a story from the inside. As a recovering alcoholic herself, Marian understands Rachel's journey and how humour can help people survive. Presented by James Naughtie and a group of invited readers ask the questions. To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn April's Bookclub Choice - Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (2014)

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 Love portrays the fragile coexistence of a beautiful, independent mother raising her son alone, a megalomaniac Czech captain and his restless regiment, and a mystical separatist Christian sect. When a mysterious, charismatic stranger trudges into their snowy village with a frighteningly outlandish story to tell, its balance is shaken to the core. James Naughtie presents and invited Bookclub readers join in the discussion To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] March's Bookclub choice : Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn

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 Le Cirque des Rêves is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice. the circus seems almost to cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the rêveurs, the dreamers. At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter's daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer's apprentice. At the behest of their shadowy masters they find themselves locked in a deadly contest and the two rivals defy all the rules of the game by falling in love. You can hear a reading of The Night Circus on BBC Radio 4 Extra Monday 6 January - Friday 10 January at 1800 To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] February's Bookclub Choice : The People's Act of Love by James Meek (2005) Presented by James Naughtie Produced by Dymphna Flynn

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' becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections? A witness to the 2004 Madrid train bombings and their aftermath, he needs to decide whether he participates in historic events or merely watch them pass him by. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of readers asking the questions. To take part in future Bookclubs email [email protected] January 2020's Bookclub Choice : The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (2011) Presented by James Naughtie Produced by Dymphna Flynn

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 and antics of fictional Bridget Jones as a thirty-something single woman in London trying to make sense of life and love - and was published as a novel in 1996. Helen says in Bookclub that she honestly expected the column would be axed after six weeks for being too silly. She also describes how much she leaned on the plot of Pride and Prejudice, as in 1995 it seemed the whole country was watching the BBC adaptation with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. Bridget eventually finds love with aloof lawyer Mark Darcy, who of course was played by Firth in the film of the novel. With fans from women in their twenties now to others in their fifties who lived the life of Bridget at the time, Helen answers questions about the identity of unmarried women in their thirties in the 1990s, with Bridget feeling as alone as Miss Havisham and how perceptions have changed since; as well as how Bridget would fare in this #MeToo, Instagram image obsessed and internet dating world. Recorded as part of the BBC's BBC Arts year-long celebration of literature, The Books That Shaped Us; and presented by James Naughtie and with a group of readers asking the questions. December's Bookclub choice : Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (2012) Presented by James Naughtie Produced by Dymphna Flynn

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 of abuse from the owners. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to escape to the North Colson Whitehead explains how the history of the Underground Railroad is taught in American schools, although it's a metaphor for the escape networks that ran in the antebellum South, as a child he understood it was real. so in the novel the idea assumes a physical form: a dilapidated boxcar pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world, where she must overcome obstacles as she makes her way to true freedom; reflecting, Colson says, the epic journeys from Homer and also Gulliver's Travels. And as Colson Whitehead recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, the novel weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day The Underground Railroad won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a place on Obama’s summer reading list, and was included in Oprah's book club. To take part in future Bookclubs email [email protected] Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn November's Bookclub Choice : Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)

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 unrest, and in the early years of this century after the civil war. In 1969 Elias falls in love at first sight with a colleague’s wife, which will affect many around him – her husband, other colleagues, and eventually his psychiatrist Adrian Lockheart who is treating him in the present day. Adrian is the figure who links them all and his investigations into the relationships among all those who’ve experienced war, and are among its victims, is the spine of the story. To take part in future Bookclubs apply at [email protected] Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn October's Bookclub Choice : The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2017)

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 the Nelsons at first seems to offer the prospect of healing, and then one Saturday afternoon in June 2008 Michael steps through the Nelsons’ back door, thinking their house is empty and everything changes. Meanwhile thousands of miles away, just outside of Las Vegas, a man is setting in motion a change of events which eventually come to puncture life on that Hampstead Street. And Michael finds himself bearing the burden of grief and a secret. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn September's Bookclub Choice : The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (2011)

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 evening and returned to work on Monday morning without speaking to a soul all weekend. Gail created her own version of this story with the character Eleanor Oliphant, who leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. She speaks to her mother every Wednesday evening on the phone. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. One simple act of kindness shatters the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Gail describes how Eleanor becomes the agent of her own destiny and the change, learning how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted - while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she's avoided all her life. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a heartwarming story about loneliness, loss and the possibility of change. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn August's Bookclub choice : I Saw A Man by Owen Sheers (2015)

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 are seemingly unrelated, and their stories are rooted in a contemporary reality, with David presenting the driving ambitions of each man in various stages of life. As well as the preoccupations of time passing and aging, the book is also about contemporary Europe, with characters in different social settings from Cyprus to Copenhagen, Budapest to Mayfair. The book was published just before the 2016 European Referendum, but David, who currently lives in Budapest, says his aim was not to pass any political judgment, but to describe modern European life as it is. Also important to him was the comic element of men's lives – from obsessions like booze to sex to social status, and how comedy can be redemptive, with incapacity being both funny and sad at the same time. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn July's Bookclub choice : Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)

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 in the end leads them both to the dock of the Old Bailey. Much of the book is told through Yvonne’s unsent emails to Mark. Through them we come to understand Yvonne - the conflicts between her professional and private life, the pressures on her and her family and the horror of an act of violence that becomes the hinge of the story. James Naughtie presents, and a group of readers ask the questions. Presenter: James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Louise Doughty Presenter: Dymphna Flynn June's Bookclub choice : All That Man Is by David Szalay (2016)

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 Davy's invention of the miner's safety lamp, and from the first balloon flight to African exploration. Holmes has also written biographies of the poets Coleridge and Shelley and he explains how The Romantics didn't believe in the modern idea that the arts and sciences are two cultures dividing us. The chemist Humphrey Davy wrote poetry and was good friends with Coleridge and they inhaled nitrous oxide gas together as part of Davy's experiments on its properties. Presented by James Naughtie and including questions from an audience of readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn May's Bookclub Choice : Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty (2013)

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 impossible to adjust and find a role for herself. Then, enemies become friends, friends become enemies as an iron curtain is drawn across Europe. Spies are in demand. It is in the clandestine and secret world of the new espionage that Marian finds purpose and is recruited by the Soviet Union. Mawer's evocation of poor, battered post-war London, still a drab city of thick and clammy fogs won praise from critics, who also likened Marian to James Bond – both in terms of bravery and promiscuity. Marian walks the tightrope between the people in her life who have sent her into danger, those whom she must fear, and those she seeks to protect. Tightrope won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction 2016. Presented by James Naughtie and including questions from an audience of readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn April's Bookclub Choice : The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes (2008)

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 world, the archaic poets create continuity between human beings and our surroundings. The poems in Falling Awake move easily from the observation of the falling rain, or the stealthy tread of a fox through a darkened garden, to the sight of the head of Orpheus floating away on the River Hebron after he's been killed, with his voice still singing as it goes. And, then finally, to Tithonus, a forty-six minute poem written for performance which is a gripping evocation of dawn - again from an idea bequeathed by classical mythology. The poem takes us, as it did one summer as Alice observed the dawn, from the moment when the sun is six degrees below the horizon to the breaking of light. Presented by James Naughtie with readers from the charity Poet in the City asking the questions. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn March's Bookclub Choice : Tightrope by Simon Mawer (2015)

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 rich merchant, Johannes Brandt, hoping for love and prosperity. Instead, she enters a world of tensions, secrets and mystery which soon threatens her future. Johannes gives his new wife an extraordinary wedding gift: a miniature replica of their home. As the enigmatic craftswoman delivers more and more miniatures for the cabinet house, its tiny occupants start to mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Jessie Burton Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub choice : Falling Awake by Alice Oswald

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 for the book came from Meg's own experience as a teenager at summer camp in the same era and how the experience can give young people the opportunity to re-invent themselves. What links the six teenagers in The Interestings is their creativity – but how many of them will be successful in their chosen fields? Decades later, aspiring actress Jules has resigned herself to a more practical occupation, Cathy has stopped dancing, Jonah has laid down his guitar and Goodman (a bit of a misnomer) has disappeared. Only the animator Ethan and theatre director Ash, now married, have remained true to their adolescent dreams and have become shockingly successful. As the group's fortunes tilt, their friendships are put under strain and Meg Wolitzer explains to Bookclub how the strain of envy and disappointment drives the story. Meg Wolitzer has been enjoying great success this autumn with the film version of her novel about a Nobel prize winning writer, The Wife. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Meg Wolitzer Producer : Dymphna Flynn January 2019's Bookclub choice : The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (2014)

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 on a bleak stretch of the Lancashire coast near Morecambe Bay called The Loney, which is infamous for its dangerous waters. In 1976, The congregation of St Jude’s Catholic church in London head north, on pilgrimage to a holy shrine, near The Loney, hoping to cure Hanny, a boy who’s been mute since birth. His brother, who is unnamed throughout the novel, narrates the story in the present day. The retreat is led by the newly installed parish priest, Father Bernard McGill, who struggles to shake off the ghost of his predecessor, the hardline Father Wilfred. Meanwhile, the rain sweeps in off the sea and the tides come and go, shifting the sands, burying and obscuring. There's a mysterious death at the heart of the novel; complicated and destructive family relationships, and running through it all a story of faith and superstition, imagination and fear. To the author's delight it was described as 'an amazing piece of fiction' by the master of modern gothic himself, Stephen King. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Andrew Michael Hurley Producer : Dymphna Flynn December's Bookclub choice : The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (2013)

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 teenage years, his infatuation with rock music, his relationship with his loving yet almost invisible mother and his distant and dangerously unpredictable father, and then his bewilderment and grief on his father's death. Becoming a father himself, he has to balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature. The series is an exploration of the author’s past from which emerges a universal story of the struggles, great and small, that we all face in our lives. Karl Ove Knausgaard writes with honesty about his upbringing, causing ructions in his family. He says he always knew that whatever he wrote, he would have to be able to look his family members in the eye. My Struggle finally ran to six volumes, and the last one The End, has just been published in the UK. The series became a literary sensation in his native Norway as well as around the world. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Karl Ove Knausgaard Producer : Dymphna Flynn November's Bookclub choice : The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (2014)

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

James Naughtie and Madeline Miller discuss her debut novel The Song of Achilles which won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. In The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller presents a love story against the backdrop of the Trojan war - between Achilles, leading the Greek army, and his best friend Patroclus. Her imagined relationship between the two men explains the emotional support that Achilles gets from Patroclus, the strength of the bond between them and the depth of Achilles' grief at his friend's death. Recorded with a group of invited readers. October's Bookclub Choice : A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2014) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Madeline Miller Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

Neel Mukherjee talks about his Man Booker Prize nominated book The Lives of Others, which explores the way an Indian family's history is disrupted when one member becomes involved in extremist political activism. The programme was recorded in the library at Styal Prison, Cheshire, with a reading group of women prisoners, and with the support of the National Literacy Trust and the Books Unlocked reading scheme. The Lives of Others is set in Calcutta and the ricefields on the edge of the jungle in the west of West Bengal. It takes place in the second half of the 1960s and centres on the large and relatively wealthy Ghosh family, led by a patriarch and matriarch who rule the family, from the top of a large shared house, with other relatives on lower floors depending on their social standing. The eldest grandson, Supratik, has left home and joined the Naxalite communist rebels and is working secretly in the countryside to mobilise the peasants against the landlords. Letters from him to an unnamed correspondent form one thread of narrative. The other is an intricate account of events and relationships on the various floors of the Ghosh house. There are tragedies and comedies, deaths and births, disasters and feasts and a mystery involving jewellery. The cast is huge and the reader spends time, at one point or another, with most of them. The reading group at Styal prison talk about the large cast of characters and how they drive the story, and also describe the importance of the prison library and reading in their daily lives. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Neel Mukherjee Producer : Dymphna Flynn September's Bookclub choice : The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011).

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary.

Colm Tóibín discusses his best-selling novel Brooklyn with James Naughtie and a group of invited readers. Brooklyn follows the fortunes of a young Irish woman Eilis Lacey as she leaves home to make a new life in 1950s New York. Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed and left behind. Just as her homesickness abates and she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland where she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma. In Bookclub Colm Tóibín talks about the ongoing emigration from Ireland, especially at times of economic downturn and how Irish emigrants view home; and he notes how the tides have turned with the country receiving new immigrants from the eastern countries of the European Union in recent years. Brooklyn was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and won the Costa Novel Prize in 2009. This edition continues a summer of editions celebrating Bookclub's 20th anniversary. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Colm Tóibín Producer : Dymphna Flynn August's Bookclub choice : The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (2014).

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

Margaret Atwood discusses her dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale with James Naughtie and a group of readers. This edition celebrates Bookclub's 20th anniversary and includes contributions from former alumni of Bookclub such as Ali Smith, Eimear McBride and Evie Wyld; as well as the reading group made up of Radio 4 listeners. Thirty three years ago, Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale, a novel about a futuristic America, which following a major ecological disaster, is ruled by a brutal, misogynistic Christian theocracy called Gilead. In 2017 The Handmaid's Tale became a television series, going on to win eight Emmies. It followed the book closely, telling the tale of a society in which women are subjugated and not allowed to work or read, and valued only for their fecundity. The book has now found a new readership amongst a younger generation. The Handmaids - most prominently a woman called Offred, the narrator of the novel, are the few fertile women, who are assigned to the homes of married male rulers, and compelled to endure rape at their hands in the name of procreation. Margaret Atwood, who is one of the most celebrated novelists writing in English today, meets an invited audience of Radio 4 listeners, including sixth-formers and university students, to discuss the Handmaid's Tale. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Margaret Atwood Producer : Dymphna Flynn July's Bookclub Choice : Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (2009).

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

Jo Nesbo talks to James Naughtie about his book, The Snowman.

A treat from the Bookclub archive to celebrate our 20th anniversary.

Sarah Perry speaks to James Naughtie about her novel, The Essex Serpent.

A treat from the Bookclub archive to celebrate our 20th anniversary

Patrick Gale discusses his novel, A Place Called Winter, set at the beginning of the 20th century. The life of Patrick's own great-grandfather Harry Cane provides the backdrop for a fictional story about the character Harry Cane, who leaves behind his wife and daughter in order to keep a scandalous love affair with another man quiet, and emigrates to the harsh wilderness of Canada. Harry signs up for an emigration programme to the newly colonised Canadian prairies. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before. Patrick Gale describes how he followed in his great-grandfather's footsteps and travelled to Winter in Saskatchewan and learned about those pioneering communities and their relationship with the Cree, the Native North American tribe. And how the character Troels Munck was named for a Danish man who bidded to appear in Gale's next novel at a charity fundraiser. Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn April's Bookcub choice : The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (2016).

A treat from the Bookclub archive to celebrate our 20th anniversary

Eimear McBride discusses her book, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to the renowned travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron about his account of travelling through Russia in the late 1990s, In Siberia. It's the story of how Thubron made a 15,000-mile journey through an astonishing region - one twelfth of the land surface of the whole earth. He journeyed by train, river and truck among the people most damaged by the breakup of the Soviet Union, travelling among Buddhists and animists, radical Christian sects, reactionary Communists and the remnants of a so-called Jewish state; from the site of the last Czar's murder and Rasputin's village, to the ice-bound graves of ancient Scythians, to Baikal, the deepest and oldest of the world's lakes. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Colin Thubron Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub choice : A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride (2013).

James Naughtie and readers talk to Clive James about the first volume of his autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, which has sold over a million copies. Clive James is a poet, essayist, novelist, documentarist, critic, talk show host, travel writer, cultural commentator - and red-hot tango dancer. The audience talk to Clive about Unreliable Memoirs, which covers his boyhood years in Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney. Clive was born in 1939; the other event that year (he says) was the outbreak of war, from which his father never returned. Clive tells Bookclub how that event has dominated his whole life.

In an extended version, Jennifer Egan talks about A Visit from The Goon Squad.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Edward St Aubyn, who is best known for his five autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, which dissect the agonies of family life with honesty, wit and precision. His debut novel Never Mind won a Betty Trask award, while our chosen book is the fourth in the Melrose series, Mother's Milk, and was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker prize. In Mother's Milk, the middle aged Patrick Melrose is married with two young children. He finds his wife consumed with motherhood and his mother consumed by a New Age Foundation, and about to disinherit him in favour of a suspect Irish shaman. The novel opens with a dazzling scene as Patrick's first son Robert narrates his own birth as it happens, and then grows into a young boy who understands far more about life than he ought. Patrick is caught in the family wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide and his once wealthy, illustrious family is in peril. In this rare interview, Edward St Aubyn admits he does not enjoy discussing his work in public, and says that in Mother's Milk there is less of himself in the character of Patrick than in the previous novels; and he describes the writing processes behind his acerbically funny and disarmingly tender novel. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Edward St Aubyn Producer : Dymphna Flynn December's Bookclub choice : A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010).

Peter Høeg's internationally bestselling Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow was the original Scandi-crime thriller. First published in 1992 the novel's runaway success was due to its extraordinary central character, 37 year old Smilla Qaavigaaq Jasperson, as well as the unfamiliar backdrop of snowy Copenhagen and the icy wastes of Greenland. Smilla is half-Dane and half-Inuit; she is unmarried, childless, independent and irascible and yet she forms an unlikely friendship with her neighbour six year old Isaiah. The book opens when the young boy has fallen to his death from the roof of their apartment building; it's ruled an accident, yet Smilla, an expert on ice and snow, can tell from his footprints that he was running from someone. She begins her own investigation, forming an uneasy friendship with another neighbour, a mechanic. Smilla uncovers a trail of clues, and her sense of snow leads her into a mystery that goes back decades. Peter Høeg explains how the character of Smilla came to him in an unlikely way, as he saw a Somalian woman cross the street in Copenhagen and knew his next main character would be called Smilla. For Høeg, books are intuitive and less logical than daily life. He candidly discloses that Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was written by a young and inexperienced novelist, and how looking back, he is dissatisfied and rather ashamed of its enigmatic ending. He says that writing a novel is like running a marathon, it's an intense experience, and by the end, the writer can lose concentration in his exhaustion. Presented by James Naughtie Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Peter Høeg Producer : Dymphna Flynn November's Bookclub choice : Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn (2006).

Patrick McCabe speaks to James Naughtie about his novel, The Butcher Boy

Anne Patchett on her award winning novel, Bel Canto.

Deborah Levy talks about her novel, Swimming Home.

Michael Chabon talks about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with James Naughtie and a group of readers. The novel follows the story of the teenage Josef Kavalier, who makes a daring escape from the Germans in Prague in 1939, leaving his family behind. He travels across Europe and eventually arrives at his cousin Samuel Clayman's house in Brooklyn. There the pair discover a shared love of the burgeoning comic book world of Superheroes - Joe Kavalier is the artist, and Sam Clay, as he becomes, is the writer. Together they create a hero of their own, The Escapist, a Houdini-type figure who fights the Nazis, frees the enslaved and leads them home. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2001. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Michael Chabon Producer : Dymphna Flynn June's Bookclub choice : Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (2011).

Sunjeev Sahota discusses his novel The Year of the Runaways which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. The Year of the Runaways follows the stories of three undocumented Indian men who share a house in Sheffield. Tochi has fled India after his family were killed in a Caste-related massacre; Avtar arrives on a student visa, but intending to work. Randeep, Avtar's friend and neighbour, is the beneficiary of a sham marriage. In a flat on the other side of town lives Randeep's visa-wife, the British-born Narinder. Her cupboards are filled with his clothes, in case Immigration arrives. Sahota was named as a Granta Best Young British Novelist in 2013. Presented by James Naughtie and including contributions and questions from a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Sunjeev Sahota Producer : Dymphna Flynn May's Bookclub choice : The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000).

Jonathan Safran Foer talks about his acclaimed novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Set in the aftermath of 9/11, it is the story of a young boy coming to terms with the tragedy of his father's death in the World Trade Centre. hen he find s an envelope with the word 'Black' written on it in his father's hand he sets out to find everyone in the city called Black, to see if he can pick up a clue. After finding a mysterious key in a left behind in his father's closet, in an envelope labelled Black, nine year old Oskar sets out to find everyone in the city called Black, to see if he can pick up a clue. The search leads him through the five boroughs of New York and into history to the bombing of Dresden and as well as into the story of his grandparents' marriage. Presented by James Naughtie and including contributions and questions from a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Jonathan Safran Foer Producer : Dymphna Flynn April's Bookclub choice : The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (2015).

James Naughtie and audience talk to Kamila Shamsie about her novel Burnt Shadows

Novelist Barbara Trapido has been delighting readers over a forty year career. In The Travelling Hornplayer (1998) she spins a tale of betrayal, misunderstanding, coincidence and the passions of youth, all with her subversive and entertaining sense of humour. From its haunting start : "Early on in the morning of my interview, I woke up and saw my dead sister" to its grand finale at an Oxford College, The Travelling Hornplayer zips along with plot twists and character turns, shocking revelations and desperate reactions. Any attempt at summary and character explanation is dizzying, but here are a few hints: for three years, Ellen Dent has been devastated by the loss of her younger sister Lydia who had become an informal student of celebrated novelist Jonathan Goldman. Jonathan's daughter Stella, a precocious and difficult child, is unwittingly involved in Lydia's death, and Stella in turn befriends Ellen at Edinburgh University. Stella's mother Katherine, who had appeared as a dynamic character in Trapido's Brother of the More Famous Jack, becomes a passive mother in The Travelling Hornplayer. All their stories mesh together into a sparky, tragicomic puzzle. Barbara tells James Naughtie and the gathered group of Bookclub readers how the novel was inspired by Schubert's song cycles, with their lyrics by William Muller, and how her dry wit and acerbic observations, especially of Britain's class system, come from her being an outsider. Brought up under the apartheid system in South Africa, Barbara came to London in the early 60s and became a schoolteacher. Presenter: James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Barbara Trapido Producer : Dymphna Flynn March's Bookclub Choice : Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005).

John Lanchester talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about his novel Capital, which was a major BBC TV drama in 2015. The residents of an affluent street in London are busy getting on with their lives when one day something strange happens. Every house in the street has an identical, mysterious postcard pushed through their letterboxes that simply states "'We Want What You Have.' At first, the residents of Pepys Road, who are from mixed racial and social backgrounds, dismiss the notes as some sort of marketing campaign but gradually as events begin to escalate it becomes clear that there is more to this strange occurrence. John Lanchester is a successful financial journalist as well as novelist. The novel covers multiple contemporary issues in British life including the financial crisis of 2007-08, immigration, radical Islam, celebrity, and property prices. In Capital, there is always mystery at the back of the reader's mind. Presented by James Naughtie with contributions and questions from a group of invited readers. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : John Lanchester Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub Choice : The Travelling Hornplayer by Barbara Trapido (1998).

American writer Jay McInerney discusses his debut novel Bright Lights, Big City with James Naughtie and a group of readers. Bright Lights, Big City not only cemented Jay McInerney as a superstar among debut novelists, but came to define the culture of 80s New York in all its gritty yet glamorous glory. We follow the young unnamed narrator - he's 'You' throughout the book - during a whirlwind week in New York. He is bored with his job on a Manhattan magazine, wants to be a writer, and has been abandoned by his fashion-model wife. By night he roams the brightly lit streets of the city, hanging out in clubs and loft parties, powered by "Bolivian Marching Powder". By the time his crazy week is over the emptiness returns. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Jay McInerney Producer : Dymphna Flynn January's Bookclub choice : Capital by John Lanchester (2012).

James Naughtie discusses H is for Hawk with Helen Macdonald

James Naughtie talks to Don DeLillo about his novel Underworld

James Naughtie talks to Evie Wyld about After the Fire a Still, Small Voice

James Naughtie talks to Maggie O'Farrell about The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

James Naughtie and Tony Harrison discuss the poem 'v'

James Naughtie talks to Javier Marias about The Infatuations

James Naughtie and audience talk to Elizabeth Strout about Olive Kitteridge

James Naughtie and audience talk to Michael Holroyd about A Strange Eventful History

James Naughtie and audience talk to Kamila Shamsie about Burnt Shadows

James Naughtie talks to Richard Flanagan about The Narrow Road to the Deep North

James Naughtie talks to Colum McCann about TransAtlantic.

James Naughtie talks to China Mieville about The City and the City

James Naughtie talks to Tessa Hadley about Married Love

David Nicholls talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about his novel One Day

A M Homes talks to James Naughtie about her book May We Be Forgiven

Jon McGregor discusses his novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

With James Naughtie. Doctors work under the oath 'do no harm', but the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh says the decision whether to operate on a brain is rarely that simple. His account of his working life Do No Harm has caught the attention of readers all round the country since its publication a year ago and has this week Do No Harm won the South Bank Award for Literature, as well being shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Costa, and Wellcome book prizes this year. Henry discusses his memoir Do No Harm which is startling in its candour. He gives an extraordinary insight into his own thought processes as well as into the world of neurosurgical briefing meetings and hospital policies. Each chapter's starting point is a real-life case study and the book conveys his fascination with the human brain as well as the compassion required of a brain surgeon. Henry is honest about how a doctor must strive for balance between personal involvement with the patient and objectivity about their case. He talks about his failures, and the exhilaration of success. As always on Bookclub a group of readers, this month including members of the medical profession, join in the discussion. July's Bookcub choice : If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Henry Marsh Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Hisham Matar about his gripping debut novel In The Country Of Men. This international bestseller is set in Colonel Gaddafi's Libya of 1979, as the narrator Suleiman looks back on his childhood summer and tries to makes sense of the bewildering world around him. His best friend's father disappears and is next seen on state television at a public execution, a mysterious man sits outside the house all day, gives him sweets and asks for the names of his father's friends; and it seems his father has finally disappeared for good. Hisham Matar explains now the novel is not autobiographical but that he remembers that time well, how life in Libya 'went indoors' with cinemas closed and access to bookshops restricted. He remembers how fears, secrets and betrayal threatened individuals and families. He also talks about how his own father disappeared in the 1980s. In The Country Of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Hisham Matar Producer : Dymphna Flynn June's Bookclub choice is Do No Harm by Henry Marsh.

Adam Foulds discusses his Man Booker shortlisted novel The Quickening Maze with James Naughtie and a group of readers. Set in the 1840s, The Quickening Maze tells the story of the poet John Clare, and his incarceration at High Beach Asylum in London's Epping Forest. Run by the charismatic and reformist Dr Matthew Allen, its principles include occupational and talking therapies. Based on real life events, amongst the patients is Septimus Tennyson, brother to the young poet Alfred Tennyson. The Tennysons suffered from the English affliction : depression, and Alfred moves to be near his brother, and enjoy the peace of the forest. In the programme Foulds describes how his discovery of Tennyson and Clare being at the asylum at the same time inspired the novel, and how the closed world of the asylum is a gift for a novelist. He grew up on the edges of the forest himself and spent his teenage years birdwatching there, before he discovered a love of poetry. This intensely lyrical novel draws on John Clare's love of nature, how the Enclosure laws of the time contributed to his alienation and the deterioration of his mental health after a lifetime's struggle with alcohol and critical neglect. Foulds shows us Nature's paradise outside the walls, and Clare's dreams of home, of redemption and escape. May's Bookclub choice : In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Adam Foulds Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Wilbur Smith discusses his novel When the Lion Feeds with James Naughtie and a group of readers.

With James Naughtie. Judith Kerr discusses her novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. First published in 1971, she wrote it for her son in order to explain the story of her own family's flight from Nazi Germany. Her father was a drama critic and a distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis. The family passed through Switzerland and France before arriving finally in England in 1936. Kerr found herself a fairly willing refugee, seeing her long travels as a great adventure. Her parents went to great pains to confirm and support this view, often hiding their own personal and professional privations and struggles from their young children. When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit is now used as a set text in German schools, used as an easy introduction to a difficult period of German history. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Judith Kerr Producer : Dymphna Flynn March's Bookclub choice : When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith.

James Naughtie's first guest on Bookclub for 2015 is Marina Lewycka. Marina was born in Kiel, Germany, after the war, and moved to England with her family when she was about a year old. Her first novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, longlisted for the Man Booker and won the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction 2005. Nadezhda and her sister Vera are dismayed when their eighty-four year old father falls in love with a thirty-six year old Ukrainian divorcee. Their campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets going back fifty years into some of Europe's darkest history, and the two sisters must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their father. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers - including some from the Ukrainian community in London - join in the discussion. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Marina Lewycka Producer: Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub choice : When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr.

With James Naughtie. In a special 200th edition of the programme we celebrate the centenary of author Patrick O'Brian and Allan Mallinson is our guide to the first in his hugely popular series of Napoleonic naval stories, Master and Commander. Known as the Aubrey/Maturin novels, the twenty books are regarded by many as the most engaging historical novels ever written. Master and Commander establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his ship's surgeon and an intelligence agent. O'Brian won fans not just because of the story-telling and his power of characterisation but also his detailed depiction of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war : the weapons, food, conversation and ambience, the landscape and the sea. Master and Commander was first published in 1969 and the twentieth novel in the series Blue at the Mizzen, in 1999, a year before O'Brian died. Allan Mallinson also writes novels about the Napoleonic wars and knew O'Brian. And as always on Bookclub a group of invited readers join in the discussion. December's programme marks the 200th edition of Bookclub which began in 1998 and has featured the world's leading authors from the late 20th/early 21st century like Toni Morrison, JK Rowling, Hilary Mantel, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Paul Auster, Alan Bennett. James Naughtie's impressive list of guests also includes writers who are no longer with us like Muriel Spark, Gore Vidal, Douglas Adams, Carol Shields, and Sue Townsend. All are available online to download and keep forever, via the programme's website bbc.in/r4bookclub . Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Allan Mallinson Producer: Dymphna Flynn January's Bookclub choice : A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.

With James Naughtie. Poet Blake Morrison talks about his memoir of growing up in Yorkshire in the fifties and sixties, the son of two local GPs. It's an honest account of family life, father-son relationships and bereavement. The book also movingly chronicles his father's death in 1991, and attempted to resolve some of the secrets in his father's life. First published in 1993, And When Did You Last See Your Father? became a bestseller, was adapted into a film starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, and inspired a whole genre of literary confessional memoirs. Recorded at the Ilkley Literature Festival, Yorkshire. December's Bookclub choice : Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian (1969) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Blake Morrison Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Celebrated Australian writer Tim Winton discusses his novel Dirt Music with a group of readers. Tim reveals how after seven years of writing Dirt Music, he was unable to hand it in to his publisher on the agreed date. He felt ashamed of the novel and that it wasn't ready; if he found himself getting lost in it so would the reader. He spent the next fifty-five days redrafting and rewriting, and the novel went on to be short-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2002 and is considered one of his best. Dirt Music is set on the coast of Western Australia and in its vast isolated deserts. Forty year old Georgie Jutland is a mess, with her career in ruins she's torn between two men who are both bereaved and grieving. These characters' lives are in stasis, they are incapable of articulating their emotions and instead resort to alcohol and petty crime. Tim Winton explains : "I'm interested in people who have very few words to express feelings, it's not that they don't have feelings but they have no language, and I'm interested in finding ways to portray that ... and in this instance it's space, memory and music by which they express themselves or communicate." November's Bookclub choice : And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison (1993) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Tim Winton Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Recorded at the BBC at the Edinburgh Festivals, Allan Massie discusses his novel A Question of Loyalties. First published in 1989, the book is widely acclaimed as his finest. The novel engages with all the complexities and ambiguities of loyalty and nationality as it follows a family through the divisions in France during World War II, and the repercussions which last for decades. In the early 1950s Etienne de Balafré strives to find out what happened to his father when the German invasion of 1940 divided the country between collaboration and resistance. Where some might see an accomplice, the author Allan Massie seeks to understand a human being making difficult choices. As always on Bookclub, a group of especially invited readers join in the discussion. October's Bookclub choice : Dirt Music by Tim Winton (2002) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Allan Massie Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Sadie Jones talks about her novel The Outcast which won the Costa First Novel award in 2008. The book is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence - as he grows up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It's a tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story. Sadie says : There's something fascinating about the 50s, the cataclysm of the war and the 60s. We all think about this explosion of freedom, but caught in between it was ten years of breath held and that fascinated me. August's Bookclub : A Question of Loyalties by Allan Massie (1989) Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Sadie Jones Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. The celebrated American writer Lorrie Moore discusses her short novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? In the early nineties, Lorrie Moore was wandering through an art gallery when she came upon a painting with this same intriguing title, depicting two young girls looking at a pair of bandaged frogs. Lorrie Moore bought the painting, and borrowed its name and imagery for her second novel. She says the book is not autobiographical except "in a spiritual way." Her intent was to examine the passion and purity of adolescence and the special quality of girls' friendships in those teenage years. August's Bookclub choice : The Outcast by Sadie Jones (2008).

With James Naughtie. Emma Donoghue discusses her novel Room with an invited group of readers. Donoghue, an Irish writer living in Canada, tells the story of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who has been imprisoned with his mother in a tiny room - 11 feet by 11 feet - for his whole life. Emma was inspired to write Room after reading about European kidnapping cases such as the Fritzls in Austria, and so Jack was born into captivity after his mother was taken by a stranger at the age of 19 and held prisoner in a converted garden shed. Told in Jack's voice as he learns of a world outside his small prison, Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010. But Emma says that the premise of the novel is to explore the myths and realities of motherhood and parenting rather than focus on the crime of kidnapping - and one reader tells her how surprised she was find so much humour in the novel. July's Bookclub choice : Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? By Lorrie Moore (1994).

With James Naughtie. Australian novelist Christos Tsiolkas responds to readers' questions about his award-winning debut The Slap. The book generated considerable debate - should you slap a child who's misbehaving, but isn't yours? In this controversial novel Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident from eight very different perspectives and examines how its aftermath reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. He explains how he uses this one event to discuss the realities of contemporary Australian society - its materialism and racial prejudices, and how lives of the immigrants' children are so different from their parents'. June's Bookclub choice is Room by Emma Donoghue Produced by Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Celebrated Irish writer John Banville discusses his novel The Sea which won the Man Booker prize in 2005. In The Sea, middle-aged art historian Max Morden loses his wife to cancer and is compelled to go back to the seaside resort where he spent childhood holidays. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. John Banville talks about the power of revisiting places from childhood, how he wanted to be a painter as a teenager but found he had no talent. He explains how he painstakingly writes his novels over many years, creating sentence after sentence, but in the end he always feels the book is an embarrassment and a failure, and that he must move on to the next novel. May's Bookclub choice is The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Naomi Alderman, listed as one of Granta's Best Young Novelists 2013, responds to readers' questions about her first novel Disobedience. Alderman, herself a product of London's Jewish community, tells the story of Ronit, a young woman who's escaped her Orthodox upbringing for independence in New York. Ronit is forced to face her past when she returns home after her father, a pre-eminent Rabbi, dies. Disobedience won the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers. Producer: Dymphna Flynn April's Bookclub choice : The Sea (2005) by John Banville.

With James Naughtie. Khaled Hosseini talks about his global bestselling novel, The Kite Runner with a group of invited readers. The book describes how the happiness of an afternoon's kite flying competition in late-1970s Kabul is broken when young Amir fails to help his best friend Hassan avoid a terrible incident. The effects on the duo's friendship are devastating. Over 20 years later, Amir returns to Afghanistan from America, determined to redeem himself. Khaled Hosseini explains the unequal relationship between the two boys that lies at the heart of the novel, and how the reader has a sense of dread and impending catastrophe as the story develops. He says that although the West has a view of Afghanistan as a violent culture, he remembers that for most of the twentieth century, Afghanistan was a peaceful place, and that the West has exoticised Afghans as being 'warrior' like. March's Bookclub choice : Disobedience (2006) by Naomi Alderman Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Donna Tartt discusses her cult debut novel The Secret History, first published in 1992. "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell." In a rare visit to the UK, Donna Tartt discusses The Secret History, which she has described as a 'why dunnit'. It's a murder mystery about a group of classic students at a privileged New England college; but from page one she discloses that the friends have murdered one of their number, Bunny. A literary thriller with allusions to Euripides and Dostoevsky, The Secret History was an overnight sensation and has gripped readers for decades. As always in Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion too. February's Bookclub choice : The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Lee Child discusses the first in his hugely successful Jack Reacher series, Killing Floor, and published in 1997. He's now gone on to write 18 books featuring his grizzled action hero, a former military policeman of no fixed abode. Lee reflects on the genesis of Jack Reacher, who appeared when he decided to write fiction after being made redundant by Granada TV in 1995. Lee says that he and Jack were on a parallel journey in Killing Floor, as Jack has just left the military and is out in an unfamiliar world at the same time as Lee. As he looks back, he can see his own raw emotion in Jack, who in Killing Floor is a character full of fury. But by book seven, the frustration had abated and Jack's anger had calmed down. The books have gone on to sell over 60 million copies worldwide. As always on Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion. January's Bookclub choice : The Secret History by Donna Tartt Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Matthew Hollis discusses his Costa winning biography of the poet Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France. The book is an account of the final years of Thomas who died in action in the First World War in 1917. Although an accomplished prose-writer and literary critic, Edward Thomas only began writing poetry in 1914, at the age of 36. Before then, Thomas had been tormented by what he regarded as the banality of his work, by his struggle with depression and by his marriage. Inspired by his life-changing friendship with American poet Robert Frost, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift. The two friends began to formulate poetic ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century. But the First World War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to the safety of New England, while Thomas stayed to fight. Hollis is a poet himself and talks about the poetic life as well as the roads taken - and those not taken - that are at the heart of the book. Producer Dymphna Flynn December's Bookclub choice : Killing Floor by Lee Child.

With James Naughtie. The celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux discusses Dark Star Safari. The book is his account of an overland journey from Cairo to Cape Town, which he made 35 years after first living as a volunteer teacher in Malawi in the early 60s. In the programme he talks about the pleasures and hazards of travelling across countries that many consider no-go areas. He recalls the joy of wild camping by the little known pyramids of the Sudan, the peril of being shot at on the road, and how the continent has changed since he first knew it as a young man. He explains his theories on western aid, and how he manages the rigours of travelling. He says it's best to travel light and alone, with an open mind, a willingness to make friends - and to never forget a paperback. October's Bookclub choice : Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Producer Dymphna Flynn.

Deborah Moggach talks about her bestselling novel Tulip Fever, a story of love, greed and betrayal in 17th Century Amsterdam. Artist Jan van Loos falls for his married subject Sophia during 'tulipomania'. Prices for the recently introduced flower reached extraordinarily high levels - one bulb could fetch thousands of pounds - and then suddenly collapsed. James Naughtie and a group of invited readers discuss the story and its resonance with 21st century boom and bust economies, as well as the paintings that inspired Deborah to write the novel. September's Bookclub choice : Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Audrey Niffenegger discusses her bestselling novel The Time Traveler's Wife with James Naughtie. It's a romantic story about a man - Henry - with a gene that causes him to involuntarily time travel, and the complications it creates for his marriage to Clare. The book opens when they meet in a Chicago library, and they both understand that he is a time traveller. But Clare knows much more than this about him as he has not yet been to the times and places where they have met before, and she remembers him from when she was just six years old. He falls in love with her, as she has already with him, but his continuing unavoidable absences time travelling - and then returning with increasing knowledge of their future - makes things ever more difficult for Clare. Audrey Niffenegger explains how she created a set of rules for the book, such as there would be no sex between the couple before Clare reaches 18; and how Henry's disorder is genetic rather than magical, meaning that when he time travels he arrives naked and with no money or useful possessions. She also talks about the morality of her tale - the consequences of Henry's criminal behaviour, and how she dealt with a male character who effectively moulds the character of Clare as she grows up. Recorded at BBC Broadcasting House in London, Bookclub with Audrey Niffenegger includes questions from the studio audience. August's Bookclub choice : Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Jim Crace talks about his novel Quarantine. The novel is a re-working of the biblical account of Jesus' forty days spent in the wilderness; and, he says, has its roots in a 'Care in the Community' hostel in Moseley, Birmingham. First published in 1997, it was shortlisted for that year's Booker Prize for Fiction. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. Recorded at the Stratford-Upon-Avon Literature Festival. July's Bookclub choice : The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

The National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke discusses her collection Ice which was shortlisted for last year's TS Eliot prize. Inspired by the snowy winters of 2009 and 2010, the poems in Ice move through the seasons : from Gillian's experience of being snowed in to the sound of an icicle as it begins to melt. From the bluebells of Spring (inspired by a Renoir painting at the National Museum of Art in Cardiff) through to a hot summer's day and on to the harvest moons of autumn to New Year's Eve. They also include Gillian's earliest childhood memories, such as the opening poem Polar, which recalls the toddler Gillian lying on a polar bear rug which her father bought in a junk shop; and memories of a more collective nature - mining disasters and ancient British mythology. The land, language, history and myths of Wales are all present in these poems. Gillian says a love of language and an inherent ability to articulate is something the Welsh are brought up with, learnt from the early days of attending Chapel; and she says that being National Poet of Wales is no different than getting up at a family occasion and giving a verse or two, a tradition which lies at the heart of her culture. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. Recorded at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea. June's Bookclub choice : Quarantine by Jim Crace. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Turkey's leading female novelist Elif Shafak discusses her novel The Forty Rules of Love. The novel is about finding love and is written in two strands. One is the friendship between a whirling dervish and the Sufi poet Rumi in 13th century Anatolia; the other is about a mother in contemporary America who finds inspiration in the historical story to break away from an unhappy life. Amazingly, Elif wrote the book in English, which she first learnt at the age of ten. She then worked with professional translators to write it again in Turkish. Elif Shafak explains the importance of Sufi mysticism in the novel and in her life. She talks about the influence of her grandmother's superstitions, about the transformation of modern Turkey and how she was prosecuted - and acquitted - in 2006 for 'denigrating Turkish national identity' because of her writing. First published in 2010, The Forty Rules of Love has now been translated into over 30 languages. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. May's Bookclub choice : Ice by Gillian Clarke Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Andrew Miller discusses his novel Pure, winner of the 2011 Costa Prize. Set in pre-revolutionary Paris, the book is a gripping, earthy story about the clearing of a huge cemetery in the area now known as Les Halles. When a young engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte arrives in Paris from Normandy, he is charged with the huge task of destroying the church and cemetery of Les Innocents in 1785. He is surrounded by a fully fledged cast of characters : LeCoeur, his friend and former colleague from the mines near Belgium, his girlfriend, the prostitute Heloise, Armand, the church's organist and a revolutionary, and the fairytale like Jeanne. But just as significant to the novel's success are the ideas of the Enlightenment and Miller's subtle laying out the undercurrents of disquiet and unrest which would eventually lead to bloodshed and revolution. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. April's Bookclub choice : The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak. Produced by Dymphna Flynn.

John Simpson, the BBC's World Affairs Editor and writer Hilary Spurling discuss George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, as part of the Radio 4 Real Orwell Season. Homage to Catalonia was first published in 1938 and is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. This pivotal time in his writing career led in later years to Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. March's Bookclub choice : Pure by Andrew Miller Produced by Dymphna Flynn.

Ben Macintyre discusses Agent Zigzag - his bestselling book on the true story of a professional criminal named Eddie Chapman, a successful British double agent who infiltrated the Nazi intelligence services during World War II. A notorious safe-breaker before the war, Chapman duped the Germans so successfully that he was awarded their highest decoration, the Iron Cross. He remains the only British citizen ever to win one. His story is one of chance and charm. Recruited as a spy whilst serving time in a Jersey jail, Chapman persuaded his German spy-masters that he was serving the Third Reich, but when they parachuted him into Norfolk in 1944 he delivered himself immediately to MI5. Because of the advanced and highly secretive code breaking at Bletchley Park, MI5 were expecting this unknown spy, with his German name of Agent Fritz. Reflecting his ambivalent status, his new British handlers called him Agent Zigzag. Ben Macintyre says that Chapman's missions of sabotage and feeding false messages back to Germany were instrumental in saving hundreds of lives, as well as averting the V1 bombers from St Paul's Cathedral. James Naughtie presents and a group of Radio 4 listeners ask the questions. February's Bookclub choice : Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Sathnam Sanghera discusses his memoir The Boy With The Topknot, which won the 2009 Mind Book of the Year. Born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands, the book is his account of his childhood in 1980s Wolverhampton. The youngest of a Sikh family, it wasn't until he was 24 that he discovered his mother had protected him from the family's secret : that his father had suffered from paranoid schizophrenia all his life. Subtitled "A memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton", writing the book was Sathnam Sanghera's way of confronting his mother with some uncomfortable truths; that after his grammar school and Cambridge education, he had moved away from the family's culture and religion and was not going to accept an arranged marriage. This was a journey of discovery and independence for Sathnam that began on the day he went to the barbers on his own, and had his joora - his Sikh topknot - cut off. When the barber asked him if his dad knew he was doing this, he thought, 'it's my mum you should be worrying about'. The memoir is a meditation on mental illness as well as class and cultural differences, and in Bookclub Sathnam ponders on whether it was a young man's folly to 'share too much information' by writing down his life story. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. January's Bookclub choice is Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

David Almond talks about his prize winning novel, Skellig, which is loved by children and adults alike. Skellig is the story of what happens when a Newcastle boy finds a strange man living in the garage of his new home. Michael sets out to help the ill Skellig recover. With him is his new unconventional friend Mina, who David Almond says is the star of the book. She introduces Michael to the worlds of nature and evolution, and to William Blake's poetry, his drawings of angels, his views on education. David says that when Mina walked into the book she brought Blake with her. David Almond's story centres on the imaginations of children - is Skellig an Angel, or perhaps a man evolving into a bird? In the programme, David refuses to confirm either, saying that to him, Skellig is as much of a mystery as he is to the reader. Recorded at the Lit and Phil Library in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. James Naughtie presents. December's Bookclub choice : The Boy with the Top Knot by Sathnam Sanghera. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

American writer Marilynne Robinson talks to James Naughtie and readers about her novel Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. Marilynne Robinson enjoyed great success with her first novel, Housekeeping, when it was published in 1980. She reveals to Bookclub why there was a gap of twenty-four years before she was able to write Gilead, her second book; and how the voice of the narrator came to her when she found herself alone in a hotel one Christmas. Gilead is the autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly pastor in the small, secluded and fictional town of the same name, who knows he's dying of a heart condition. Writing in the late 1950s, Ames tells his story in the form of a letter to his seven year old son, who will have few memories of him. And as well as revealing his fears about what will happen to his family when he's gone, the account traces the family's history back to the time when the prairies around Kansas and Iowa were being settled, through the Civil War and up to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. The voice of John Ames captivates the Bookclub audience, and Marilynne discusses his life and work with themes relevant to her own - solitude and religious contemplation. November's Bookclub choice : Skellig by David Almond Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Victoria Hislop talks to James Naughtie and readers about her debut novel The Island, a fictional account of a real life leper colony, the island of Spinalonga, just off the coast of Crete. First published in 2005, The Island has now sold over a million copies. Victoria says that when she first went to Spinalonga, as a curious tourist, she had no idea that leprosy still even existed in the 20th century. She thought it had been wiped out hundreds of years ago. Even today, around 500 new cases are diagnosed every year in India and South America. Before writing novels Victoria was a successful travel journalist. On that first visit, her initial idea had been to write a piece for one of the Sunday newspapers, but after fifteen minutes wandering around the abandoned village on the island, she decided to tell the story in fiction instead. The resulting novel tells the story of a family beset by two cases of leprosy in the 1930s and 50s, before the cure was found. In the 1930s, Eleni, a school teacher in the village opposite the leper colony, catches the disease, probably from a pupil. As the pair are exiled to Spinalonga, we see how her husband and two daughters cope in her absence, one of whom will also succumb to the disease some fifteen years later. Victoria explores the shame and stigma of the disease through these characters and their lives and love affairs in a family saga stretching to present day London. October's Bookclub choice : Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje talks to James Naughtie and readers about his 1992 Booker prize-winning novel The English Patient. The novel tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian villa as the Second World War ends. The exhausted nurse Hana, the maimed thief Caravaggio, the bomb disposal expert Kip who are each haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless burns victim who lies in an upstairs room. As well as the mystery of the patient, the novel weaves two love stories - one from the past in pre-war Cairo, the other in the Italian villa. Noted for his lyrical prose, Michael Ondaatje talks about his love of poetry, how the characters of Hana and Caravaggio haunted him so much from a previous novel - In the Skin of a Lion - that he brought them back to appear in The English Patient. He also describes his painstaking method of writing a novel - by longhand in notebooks. September's Bookclub choice : The Island by Victoria Hislop Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

To celebrate the centenary of novelist Elizabeth Taylor, David Baddiel is our guide to her best known book, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Like many writers, David Baddiel thinks that Elizabeth Taylor has been overlooked and is one of the finest writers of the middle of the twentieth century. He has called her 'the missing link between Jane Austen and John Updike'. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont was the last book to be published in her life time, and was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1971. It tells the story of Laura Palfrey, a widow who can no longer look after herself and moves into a private hotel in West London, where she will probably end her days. She strikes up an unlikely friendship with an impoverished young writer, Ludo, who uses her life for his novel. Radio 4 listeners, some new to Elizabeth Taylor, and others who've been reading her books for forty years, join in the discussion with David Baddiel, and the programme is presented by James Naughtie. Producer : Dymphna Flynn August's Bookclub choice : The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

Philippa Gregory, queen of historical fiction, talks about her best-selling tale of lust, jealousy and betrayal, The Other Boleyn Girl. James Naughtie presents and a group of readers ask the questions. The novel charts the lives of Anne Boleyn, and her sister Mary, thought to be the mistress of Henry VIII before Anne. Each in their turn are "the other Boleyn Girl", pawns of their fiercely ambitious, conniving family who in the novel use the girls to advance their own positions at the court of Henry VIII. Philippa Gregory will be talking about her fascination with Anne Boleyn's lesser known sister and about the lines between working with fact and fiction; and how she drew on her research to create the claustrophobic detail of palace life in Tudor England. Philippa Gregory depicts Mary, aged just 13, as little more than a child when she is presented to Henry and ordered by her family to serve her King and country by becoming his mistress. Inevitably though, the King's eyes soon begin to wander and Mary is overlooked, helpless to do anything but aid her family's plot to advance their fortunes, replace her with Anne and give Henry the greatest gift of all: a son and heir. July's Bookclub choice : Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Ross Raisin is a young writer who won much praise for his debut novel God's Own Country in 2008. He discusses the book with James Naughtie and a group of readers. It's the story of Sam Marsdyke who's a troubled nineteen year old young man living on a remote farm in the North Yorkshire Moors. It's a place of beauty and Sam resents the incomers, be they the ramblers he spies upon, or the new neighbours who've just moved up from London. Sam is one of contemporary fiction's unforgettable characters; thanks largely to his use of the local dialect - words like beltenger, raggald or snitter. But these words don't get in the way of the reading, and part of the success of Sam's language is its confirmation of his isolation. There's an ambiguity for the reader about whether Sam's early mishaps in the novel are intentional, such as the neighbour's boy getting food poisoning from Sam's welcoming gift of hand picked mushrooms. But Ross Raisin says that for him, as Sam's creator, there's no ambiguity. Later in the novel, Sam's demise is swift, dark and frightening; and it's Ross's achievement that the reader still feels sympathy for him. Producer : Dymphna Flynn June's Bookclub choice : The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.

Anne Enright talks to James Naughtie and readers about her 2007 Man Booker prize-winning novel The Gathering. The book was the surprise win of that year - beating Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. Chair of Judges Howard Davies proclaimed the novel had one of the best closing sentences of any he had ever read. The Gathering of the title is the wake of Liam Hegarty who has committed suicide by walking into the sea at Brighton. His sister Veronica, one of the remaining nine siblings, narrates. In an exploration of uncertainty and recollection, she imagines the lives and thoughts of her grandparents' generation, and the hazy memories from her own childhood. And as family gather for the funeral, this big, brawling Irish family's history begins to spill out and show its cracks. Anne will be talking to her readers about the darkness in the novel, but also about how the Gathering provides the consolation of humour even in the grimmest situations - such as the scene where the family guard Liam's open coffin in Dublin. May's Bookclub choice : God's Own Country by Ross Raisin Up coming recordings - ELIZABETH TAYLOR - MRS PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT DAVID BADDIEL WILL BE OUR GUIDE TO THIS NOVEL Monday 28 May 5.40pm BBC Bush House Aldwych London WC2 4PH To apply for tickets, go to the BBC Radio 4 website and follow the links to Bookclub Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Alan Hollinghurst talks to James Naughtie and readers about his 2004 Man Booker prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty. Framed by the general elections of 1983 and 1987 which returned Margaret Thatcher to power, The Line of Beauty is a story of love, class, sex and money - and AIDs. It won praise for the way it crawls deep under the skin of 1980's Britain. Protagonist Nick Guest is a young, gay Oxford graduate of modest means who is invited to stay with the wealthy Fedden family at their Notting Hill home. The father Gerald is a conservative MP consumed by by his rising status within the party; his wife Rachel is from the landed gentry - and therefore old money; daughter Catherine is a manic depressive, whilst Nick has had a crush on the son Toby since their time together at University. However, there is far more to this book than mere social satire. "It's about someone who loves things more than people. And who ends up with nothing, of course. I know it's bleak, but then I think it's probably a very bleak book, even though it's essentially a comedy." This is Nick speaking about Henry James' book The Spoils of Poynton, which he has been turning into a (doomed, of course) film script. However, in a typical instance of Hollinghurst's sharp irony, both the reader and Nick himself realise just as he speaks these words that he might as well be discussing his own narrative in The Line of Beauty. April's Bookclub choice : Anne Enright's The Gathering Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to the American writer and artist Art Spiegelman about his graphic novel Maus. First published in short frames in his experimental comic RAW in the 1970s, Maus the book has become a publishing phenomenon, selling over two million copies world wide. It tells the story of his parents, Vladek and Anja Spiegelman, from their first meeting in pre-war Poland to their survival of the death camps at Auschwitz and Dachau and their move to New York after the war. Part of the success of the book is Art's portrayal of the characters as animals. The Jews are mice, the Germans cats, the Poles pigs and the Americans dogs. The mouse metaphor, he says, came naturally to him as a comic book writer. He wanted to keep the scale of the book small, and with Maus, all he wanted to do was tell a story, he never wanted to change the world, he's too pessimistic for that. The story follows the birth of his elder brother Richieu, who was poisoned by an aunt rather than face capture; how his parents were hidden by generous Poles, and then betrayed to the SS as they paid to be smuggled over the border to safer Hungary. As well as the force of this story, Art Spiegelman talks about the powerful subplot which shows the difficult relationship between father and son, and what it could be like for the child of Holocaust survivors. In Maus, Art refuses to sentimentalise or sanctify his father the survivor; and in the same way his self-portrait is unflinching in its honesty. Producer : Dymphna Flynn March's Bookclub choice : The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst.

Hunter Davies talks to James Naughtie and readers about his biography of The Beatles, first published in 1968. Recorded at the Cavern, Liverpool. In 1966-68 Hunter Davies spent eighteen months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers. As their only ever authorised biographer he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George and Ringo but to their friends, family and colleagues. He hung out in Abbey Road studios whilst they recorded Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At the end of sessions the Beatles happily let him pick up scraps of paper with half written lyrics on them, before the cleaners could tidy up. In the early 1980s he realised they were worth more than his house, and he gave them to the nation; the lyrics to Yesterday he saved now sit alongside the Magna Carta in the British Library. All four Beatles were committed to the book, and Hunter was able to spend time with their families, John's Aunt Mimi, and Ringo's mother and stepfather as they settled into their swanky new bungalows far from the screaming fans in Liverpool. He even found John Lennon's estranged father, Freddie Lennon, who was washing dishes in a hotel not far from John's new home in Surrey - and Hunter introduced John to him after many years. Looking back at the book some forty years later, Hunter regrets not writing more about witnessing the Lennon and McCartney song writing process; he saw the genesis of songs like Getting Better and Across the Universe. And although the book was first written and published before the group's acrimonious split, Hunter says that George was already fed up of being a Beatle, and John was listless and bored. Bookclub with Hunter Davies is a fascinating account of the heady days of the Beatles' success. At the time he thought the bubble would burst and that they would be replaced in people's affections - though not his own. Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub : Maus by Art Spiegelman.

December's Bookclub author is Sebastian Barry. Well known as a successful dramatist and novelist, his literary career became stellar when he won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year Award with this month's chosen book, The Secret Scripture; and he is considered one of Ireland's greatest living writers. The novel is told by Roseanne, who is uncertain of her age; she thinks she is now one hundred. She's been incarcerated in asylums in Ireland for over sixty years, and is writing the story of her life, on pieces of paper that she hides under the floor boards of her room. This is the Secret Scripture of the title; which comes from a poem by an Irish nationalist poet, Thomas Kettle, who fought for the British in World War I. As the book unfolds, we discover the why and the how of her incarceration. The second narrator of the novel is Roseanne's psychiatrist Dr William Grene, who must judge whether Roseanne can be released into society as the hospital is about to close. As he comes to know her, he becomes fascinated by her and the history - which is the history of twentieth century Ireland - that she represents. Sebastian Barry tells readers how he uses his own family in his fiction and how the character of Roseanne came from hearing about a great aunt who had been shunned by the rest of the family - the only thing known about her was her great beauty. His was a family beset with secrets, and his mother, Joan O'Hara (a famous actress of her day), was a "consummate un-coverer of secrets". January's Bookclub choice : 'The Beatles' by Hunter Davies. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Iain Banks meets James Naughtie and readers at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh to talk about his debut novel The Wasp Factory, first published in 1984. This shocking novel is an insight into the life of sixteen year old Frank, a brutal and disturbed teenager who enjoys killing animal and insects all too much. But Frank isn't alone in his madness - his brother Eric has just escaped from an asylum, and is gradually making his way back home to the remote island house Frank shares with his father Angus. Banks' major achievement is to make the reader feel sorry for this character of Frank and as one audience member acknowledges, to make us laugh. Iain talks about how he drew on his own childhood experiences of dam-building, kite-making and experimenting with explosives to create the character of Frank - but that is where the similarities end. Iain's own boyhood was a happy one, it was purely his desire to shock as an emerging author that led him to Frank. He says he identifies with none of the characters in the story and describes his writing in the Wasp Factory as 'exaggeration'. Readers who know the Wasp Factory will remember its startling ending, where it is disclosed that Frank is not all he seems, and Iain reveals how this part of the story came to him. Producer : Dymphna Flynn December's Bookclub choice : The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry.

Arundhati Roy talks to James Naughtie and readers about her Booker prize winning novel The God of Small Things. It's Arundhati Roy's first and so far only book of fiction and it took the literary world by storm, winning the Booker Prize in 1997. It's a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" that lay down "who must be loved, and how, and how much". The book is a description of how the small things in life affect people's behaviour and their lives, and with a love affair between characters of different backgrounds, shows how cruel the caste system could be. Arundhati Roy talks about why she's never written fiction since, and how she's not ruling out a return to the genre. She describes how her training as an architect was useful in the planning of this multi-layered story, with its complex time frames which owe a debt to James Joyce's Ulysses. November's Bookclub choice : The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Mohsin Hamid talks to James Naughtie and readers about his bestselling book The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This edition of Bookclub will be broadcast just two days after the novel has been featured as Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, and it's a timely choice as we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 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. It's the story of Changez, a high-flying young Pakistani man living in New York at the time of the attacks, whose life is turned around on that day, and who in the aftermath returns to his native Pakistan. Changez tells his life story to an unnamed stranger, an American man, at a tea house in Lahore. Readers may recognise the same device was used by Albert Camus in his novel The Fall - and Mohsin Hamid acknowledges the debt to the French novel. As night falls, the tension grows between the Changez and the American and a sense of mystery and suspense grows page by page. Who is this American? Is he a spy? Does he have a gun in his pocket, and what exactly has the 'reluctant fundamentalist' come to believe? This novel has one of the most ambiguous endings in contemporary fiction and readers will be telling Mohsin Hamid how they think it finishes. October's Bookclub choice : 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Donna Leon talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about the first in her hugely successful crime series set in Venice, Death At La Fenice. The book launched the career of her fictional detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti in the early 1990s, and he is now beloved by readers. Like an Italian Maigret, he's a policeman of integrity. Brunetti also has a fulfilled family life with his intellectual and feminist wife Carla, and their two children, who are trapped in an eternal adolescence as the Brunetti series progresses and the years pass by. The portrait of the family, along with the subtle and vivid picture of Venice, and the enticing descriptions of what Venetians eat, is at the heart of Leon's books, giving a warmth that balances out the darkness of the crimes. The books also give us an insight as to how Italy as a country works. Donna Leon is an American who's lived in Venice for more than twenty years and she describes the corruption, inertia, nepotism and cynicism so sharply we can only think it's authentic. Although the books are translated into twenty languages now, Italian is not one of them. She tells James Naughtie and assembled readers it's because she wishes to remain anonymous in her adopted city. September's Bookclub choice : 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' by Mohsin Hamid. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to William Fiennes about his memoir The Music Room. The book is his account of growing up in a castle with an epileptic brother. It's an honest yet discrete story of a fascinating family and how they deal with the eldest brother's struggle with epilepsy. In his upbeat moments, Richard brims with tenderness and high spirits, and at his worst he is threatening and even violent. Richard dies of a seizure at forty-one; his life defined by damage done to his brain by his epilepsy. The book is potted with medical histories of epilepsy alongside anecdotes about the film crews, country fairs and conventions that dominated daily life for Fiennes' family in the castle. Twelve thousand visitors passed through the castle every year - giving, he says, new meaning to the phrase 'tidy your room. But the book is also a testament of a family's love for their ill and sometimes difficult son. William talks about his family story and the result is an unforgettable picture of the disordered world that he experiences through his brother, set in an ancient house where the music room of the title is the place where he sought refuge and enjoyed playing as a child. August's Bookclub choice : 'Death at La Fenice' by Donna Leon. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to American writer Nicole Krauss, shortlisted for this year's Orange Prize. Our chosen novel is her critically acclaimed The History of Love. It's a complex tale of loss - a lost manuscript, lost homelands, characters grieving for lost loved ones. There are four separate narrators who are all drawn to the lost book - also called The History of Love. Leo Gursky is at the end of his life, tapping his radiator each evening to let his neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the local coffee bar. He doesn't want to die on a day when no-one has seen him. As a young man Leo wrote The History of Love in pre-war Poland. Although he doesn't know it, the book also survived, crossing oceans and generations and changing lives. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book, and lives across New York City from Leo. She and her little brother, who thinks he is the Messiah, are recovering from the loss of their father. The starting point for writing the novel was the story of her grandmother, who came to England as a chaperone on the Kindertransport, and lost all her family in the Holocaust. She had fallen in love with a young doctor, whom she had also presumed dead. Forty years later, he wrote to her grandmother from South America. Nicole's History of Love is like a jigsaw, where all the pieces come together at the end - and she talks about how she has no preconceived idea about where the story will end as she begins. Nicole likens it to being a traveller in a foreign city, walking from street to street, finding her way. July's Bookclub choice : 'The Music Room' by William Fiennes. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Andrew O'Hagan is a rising star in the literary world. He joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his novel Be Near Me, the story of Father David, an aesthetic English Catholic priest working in a working class community in Ayrshire. This is a poignant story of a man who doesn't fit in. Father David is trapped by class hatreds, and troubled by sexual feelings which he struggles to keep submerged. He's a character who's almost intent on self destruction, and as the reader follows his story, we can't help but think it's going to end in tragedy. Andrew O'Hagan talks about the challenges of writing such a story in the first person, how inevitably people think it's about himself - and how by creating a protagonist whose side of the story is not quite reliable leads to intrigue in the mind of the reader. Andrew has drawn on the community where he himself grew up - a community ridden by class and religious divide. One of the novel's strongest characters is Father David's housekeeper Mrs Poole who was based on Andrew's mother and colleagues. His mother was a school cleaner and as a child Andrew spent some of his school holidays watching and listening to their conversations as they went about the 'big clean' - preparing the school for the new academic year. The starting point for the book was when Andrew happened to be in a café in Paris and noticed a Catholic priest drinking coffee alone in the corner. Andrew watched as a tear fell down the priest's cheek, and immediately began to wonder what his story was and went home to write it. As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme. June's Bookclub choice : 'The History of Love' by Nicole Krauss. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Recorded at the Verbal Arts Centre in Londonderry/City of Derry, James Naughtie and readers talk to one of Ireland's finest writers - Jennifer Johnston. Now in her eighties, Jennifer has been called 'The Quiet Woman' of Irish literature. Her distinguished career has spanned more than 40 years and has netted the Whitbread Prize among her many awards. Her books are taught on the Irish school curriculum and in American Universities. The chosen novel for this edition of Bookclub is one of her later ones, The Gingerbread Woman. Like many of her novels, this story deals with personal conflict, as two characters meet by chance one day on a cliff top overlooking Dublin Bay and form an uneasy friendship. Yet the conflict between these two mirrors a bigger question - the conflict between the North and South of Ireland. Jennifer Johnston is a writer who watches and listens. She's best known for her portrayal of different Irelands, notably the group called the Anglo-Irish, who appear in what became known as The Big House novels. More recently she has moved her protagonists out of the countryside and into the affluent suburbs. Jennifer grew up in a theatrical house - her father Denis was the leading playwright of his day and her mother Shelah an actress. Jennifer describes how her literary upbringing has resonated through her writing, and how much she enjoys writing dialogue. As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme. May's Bookclub choice : 'Be Near Me' by Andrew O'Hagan. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Benjamin Zephaniah, the poet and novelist who's equally popular with both adults and children. Our chosen novel is Refugee Boy, written for young adults. Benjamin is perhaps best known for his performance poetry with a political edge, but he has also written novels for young people. Benjamin is interested in international affairs and travels extensively throughout the developing world. He has visited refugee camps in places like Gaza and Montenegro and in Refugee Boy he borrows from many of the stories he heard, to create a tale that many refugees would recognise. Refugee Boy is the story of Alem, whose mother is Eritrean and father Ethiopian. With both countries at war, his family are neither safe nor wanted in either country. Alem's father brings him to the UK for a better life. Benjamin has said it's hard being a writer who's labelled as 'political' - because he's first and foremost interested in people, not politics. This edition of Bookclub features a group of young adults as well as older readers from the University of the 3rd age, and is chaired by James Naughtie. April's Bookclub choice : 'The Gingerbread Woman' by Jennifer Johnston. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to journalist Tim Butcher about his bestselling travel book Blood River. When Tim Butcher was appointed the Daily Telegraph's correspondent to South Africa in 2000, he became obsessed with the Democratic Republic of Congo. This vast country dominated a map of Africa on his office wall and he began to plan a journey following in the footsteps of a famous predecessor - Henry Stanley. Stanley, of Dr Livingstone renown, had travelled along the route of the River Congo in 1876-77 whilst Africa correspondent for the same newspaper. Tim Butcher says in Bookclub that he lost all rationality - people who knew the country well told him his proposed trip was suicidal. The DR Congo stretches the same distance as Paris to Moscow and is one of Africa's most dangerous countries. Although it has immense economic resources, the DR Congo has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war, and this has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis. Part adventure story, part travelogue and part history, Blood River tells the account of Tim's own journey along the river in 2004. We hear about the hardships and generosity of the people he met, as well as the fear and the practical difficulties of travelling in a country that has been ravaged by war and neglected for so long. A group of readers quiz Tim about his experience, and James Naughtie chairs the programme. March's Bookclub title: Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah Producer: Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to this year's Man Booker prize winner - Howard Jacobson. The chosen book for this edition of Bookclub is the one he says he wants people to read : The Mighty Walzer, first published in 1999. Peculiarly, it is a comic novel about the joy and despair of table tennis. It's also a portrait of a Jewish boyhood in Manchester, showing how the main character - Oliver Walzer - comes to terms with the demands of puberty and his sporting genius; as well as the attentions of his mother, grandmother and assorted aunties. Back in the 1950s Jacobson, like his alter-ego Oliver Walzer, was one of the top 10 junior table tennis players in the country. This is a heavily autobiographical novel from a writer who's has been called 'the master of confessional humour'. As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme. February's Bookclub choice : 'Blood River' by Tim Butcher. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Sarah Hall about her novel The Carhullan Army, recorded at the Chapter and Verse Literature Festival in Liverpool. Sarah Hall is being tipped as one of the most interesting up and coming novelists of her generation. By the age of thirty-five she had already been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. The chosen book in this month's programme is The Carhullan Army, her tale about a flooded post-apocalyptic Britain, and how a group of women are living on the outside of a harsh new regime. Sarah Hall is preoccupied by the recent crises of the damaging floods of Cumbrian towns and she'll be talking about how she's used these events in her writing - and how her native landscape inspires her. January's Bookclub title: The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to award winning biographer Claire Tomalin about her life of Thomas Hardy - The Time-Torn Man. Claire Tomalin is celebrated for her ability to create an intimacy of her subjects' life, whether it's Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, Dickens's mistress Nelly Ternan or in this edition of Bookclub, the author and poet Thomas Hardy. Claire reveals a personal relationship with Hardy - with childhood memories of her sister reciting his poem 'Lyonnesse'; and how she snuck into her local library to read Jude the Obscure at fourteen, much to her mother's dismay. Her mother was born just two years after the publication of Jude in 1895, and was aware of how its revolutionary ideas about marriage and its violence had shaken the literary establishment - Bishops had wanted to ban the book . Thomas Hardy was a man full of contradictions. His marriage to his wife Emma disintegrated and even though they lived together they were no longer on speaking terms. Yet on her death he wrote movingly about their early love in the much praised collection "Poems 1912-13." including 'The Voice' - which begins 'Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me...' and which normally makes Claire cry when she reads it. He was known for his bucolic tales of Dorset but loved spending time in London for The Season. He wrote about the breakdown in rural communities but took no political action. Born into rural poverty, his funeral bier was carried by his great contemporaries George Bernard Shaw, AE Housman and Rudyard Kipling. He was a great Victorian novelist who became a great 20th century poet. December's Bookclub choice : 'The Carhullan Army' by Sarah Hall Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to the Irish writer Roddy Doyle about his Booker prize winning novel Paddy Clarke HA HA HA. In the novel ten year old Paddy rampages through the streets of suburban Dublin with a pack of like-minded boys, playing cowboys and Indians, etching their names in wet concrete and lighting fires. To get into the character of the boy Roddy took himself into his own childhood memories. He walked round Dublin and tried to remember how the City looked from a child's eye view, and he saw things he hadn't seen since he was ten, and realised that children don't discriminate in their outlook. In the book Doyle captures the sensations and speech patterns of a ten year old without resorting to sentimentality. This is a book that reminds you of your own childhood, the fun things, the scary, and the incomprehensible. It's a portrayal of ordinary family life - the father learning to drive is just one comic set piece; but there's also the brutality of the school playground and the unvarnished but slow realisation that Paddy's parents' marriage is falling apart. Roddy Doyle wrote this book when he was still a teacher and his son was newly born. He finished longer passages during the Christmas and Easter holidays when he had more time; and wrote shorter sections when his son was napping. Roddy Doyle is known for the sharp edged street humour in previous books such as the Commitments and the Snapper, and in the programme he shows he still has that trademark Dublin wit. James Naughtie chairs the programme. November's Bookclub choice : 'Thomas Hardy - Time Torn Man' by Claire Tomalin Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to the Canadian writer Yann Martel about his novel Life of Pi, which won the 2002 Man Booker prize and went on to be a global phenomenon. James Naughtie chairs the programme. October's Bookclub choice : 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' by Roddy Doyle Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to American writer Siri Hustvedt about her novel What I Loved. Siri Hustvedt's novel is part love story, thriller, and part family saga. It's set in New York's glamorous art world, and starts in 1975 when an art historian buys a remarkable painting of a woman and tracks down the artist. The two men become good friends and their lives intertwine as their sons grow up together. In the boys' teenage years the worlds of the two families fall apart and the novel changes tack, as a mystery develops in the second half of the book that the reader has no idea about in the novel's early stages. This is a novel about love and loss that became a word-of-mouth success with book groups, and went on to become a world wide bestseller after its first publication in 2003. James Naughtie chairs the programme. September's Bookclub choice : 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to the Swedish thriller writer Henning Mankell about his novel Sidetracked, featuring his detective Kurt Wallander. Henning Mankell's character is now in the pantheon of fictional detectives. Like Conan Doyle before him, Mankell receives letters from readers addressed to Kurt Wallander. They think he's real because he's like us. He's a detective who suffers angst about the way the world is changing, readers witness his depressions and his difficult relationships with women. Mankell calls it the 'diabetes syndrome'. Can you imagine, he says, James Bond stopping mid-action for a shot of insulin? Mankell was already a well known writer in Sweden before he found worldwide fame with Wallander. He created Wallander to write about the changes in Swedish society. Always known for its generous welfare state and its tolerance, Mankell was dismayed to see a certain xenophobia developing with race crimes against immigrants in the early nineties. For him, the best way to explore this issue was within a crime story, and so he needed a detective to solve the mystery. Recorded with a group of twenty-five readers in the studio, Bookclub with Henning Mankell is a lively and entertaining discussion that belies any stereotype of Swedish moroseness - with a writer considering his best known creation. James Naughtie chairs the programme. August's Bookclub choice : 'What I Loved' by Siri Hustvedt. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to the celebrated author Lynne Reid Banks about her first novel, The L-Shaped Room. It was an instant success and has been in print ever since it was published exactly fifty years ago. It's the story of Jane, a single young woman who falls pregnant. Reading The L-Shaped Room again in 2010, it's easy to forget what a taboo it was to be pregnant and unmarried in the early 1960s. Jane is a brave character who decides to bring up the baby by herself, after her father throws her out. But her feelings are mixed, and as almost a punishment to herself she rents a grubby L-shaped room at the top of a run- down boarding house in Fulham. Gradually as she settles in and does up the room, she makes friends, and in tandem with the improvements to her surroundings, her life gets better. This is a novel that has inspired young women to independence, whatever their situations. Readers in the audience describe what this book means to them - from a woman whose own mother brought her up single-handedly to another who says that the line about Jane having to wear a wedding ring 'brought it all back.' Lynne Reid Banks was one of the first female news-reporters at ITN. Although she complained she was always given 'soft stories' she did not consider herself a feminist at the time, which is ironic, as the L-Shaped Room is considered as a feminist novel. Recorded with a group of twenty-five readers in the studio, Bookclub with Lynne Reid Banks is a lively discussion with a writer looking back at the book that changed her life as well as many readers' lives. James Naughtie chairs the programme. July's Bookclub choice : Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's most prominent writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Fiction, joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss My Name is Red. The novel is a complicated mixture of murder mystery, fairy tale and exploration of the medieval world of the Turkish miniaturist painter. The novel begins - surreally - from the point of view of the murdered man; his body thrown down the bottom of a well, he waits for this death to be discovered. The story is then taken up by a myriad of characters, which include a coin and a horse, as well as the colour Red itself. They recount a chapter at least each - in fact this book has twenty narrators and yet, as James Naughtie and readers testify, it is a page-turner. My Name is Red is the most popular of Pamuk's in the English speaking world, due he says to the whodunnit element, but also to the global appeal of the art. Orhan Pamuk discloses how as a young man he longed to be a painter, and so as a successful writer, it was a natural progression to write about the joys of painting, and to explore how an artist feels as their hands move across the page. His reputation as the funny man of his family is also in evidence. Despite his intellectual credentials, humour is an important tool for him. He says he doesn't like writing a serious book, and if the reader isn't smiling when he reads his work, then he feels guilty. June's Bookclub choice : The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Jeanette Winterson about her breakthrough first novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, about a girl growing up in an Evangelical Christian group. This Spring Jeanette is celebrating twenty five years since the book was first published - the question the book has always raised is how much of it is autobiographical? Because there are distinct parallels, the main character is called Jeanette, she lives in the same kind of Northern mill town and had a similar story. Jeanette Winterson will be talking to James Naughtie and readers about how fact meets fiction, and how she looks at this book as a kind of cover story of her own life. Adopted into a Pentecostal family, the fictional Jeanette is brought up to be a missionary and encouraged to preach from an early age; but when she falls in love with another girl, she decides to leave her beloved community and her home. Jeanette explains how this event is not the point of the story, but pivotal to it. Now on the curriculum for English at AS Level, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a warm and - perhaps surprisingly - very funny study of a girl setting out on her path in life. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Canadian author Douglas Coupland about his cult novel Generation X. First published in 1991, it became a worldwide bestseller and defined a generation. Set during a time of yuppies and youth unemployment, the characters in Generation X are all in their late 20s, highly educated but with no ambition - they work in bars, and tell each other stories. This is the novel that made 'McJob' a popular term; and looking back at the novel Douglas speaks movingly of his own struggle as he set out to be a writer.

World-wide bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith meets readers to discuss the first in his series of humorous novels set in Edinburgh - 44 Scotland Street. The presenter is James Naughtie. The book tells the story of the interlocking lives of the inhabitants of adjoining flats in a house in the Georgian New Town of Edinburgh - their comic adventures, their foibles and accidents, their chance criss-crossings day-to-day. McCall Smith talks about the challenges of writing one thousand words a day, and how readers would advise him on where to take the story next, and what they thought he should do with characters they didn't like. He also explains how a few real people - novelist Ian Rankin, art gallery owner Guy Peploe - turned up in the stories. January's Bookclub choice: Unreliable Memoirs (Vol 1) by Clive James Producer: Dymphna Flynn.

James Naughtie and readers talk to celebrated American author John Irving about his novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany. The novel starts with a shock - the eponymous hero hits a foul ball in a baseball match and kills his best friend's mother. It then moves through to spooky premonitions during an amateur performance of A Christmas Carol, to a drunken psychiatrist driving down school steps, to a bloody end during the Vietnam war. Yet there is pattern and meaning in such bizarre antics, and part of the fun for the reader is to work them out. Irving reveals the mysteries of one of fiction's most extraordinary characters, Owen Meany - the little guy with the falsetto voice.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Linda Grant about her novel When I Lived in Modern Times, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000. Linda is known for bringing a strong Jewish identity to most of her writing. 'Scratch a Jew and you've got a story', remarks the main character Evelyn Sert on the story's first page as she looks over her life. The novel follows Evelyn - hairdresser, spy, lover - on her voyage from post-war London to Tel Aviv, where the British are preparing to leave Palestine and the new state of Israel is about to be born.

James Naughtie and readers talk to Gillian Slovo about her novel Red Dust, a courtroom drama set in post-apartheid South Africa. Gillian is the daughter of Joe Slovo, one of the founding members of the African National Congress, and Ruth First, an anti-apartheid campaigner murdered by security forces in the early 1980s. The novel draws heavily on Gillian's own experience of coming face to face with her mother's killer during the Truth and Reconciliation hearings of the new South Africa.

James Naughtie and readers talk to travel writer and literary critic Robert Macfarlane about his book The Wild Places, in which he sets out to discover if there remain any genuinely wild places in Britain and Ireland. It is an account of journeys that he made to the remaining wilderness in the islands. He climbs hills and mountains, walks across moors and bogs, luxuriates beside hidden lochs, swims through caves and disappears into forests, all in search of that special quality of solitude in communion with nature.

James Naughtie and readers meet the best-selling writer CJ Sansom. They discuss Dissolution, the first in his series of Tudor mysteries featuring the investigator Matthew Shardlake. Shardlake is sent to Sussex to investigate a murder in a monastery, just as Henry VIII is beginning his reformation of the Church.

James Naughtie and readers meet Northern Irish writer Bernard MacLaverty to discuss his Booker Prize-shortlisted novel Grace Notes, which concerns a young female composer very much in a man's world. Now living in Scotland, MacLaverty returns to his native Belfast especially for the recording of the programme.

Orange Prize winner Kate Grenville talks to James Naughtie about her novel The Secret River and answers questions from a group of readers. Told through the eyes of 19th-century deportee William Thornhill and his family as they arrive in Australia, the novel examines the themes of ownership, belonging and identity from the point of view of the settlers and the Aboriginal people who were already there. Writing the book, says Kate Grenville, was 'like getting a new set of eyes and ears'.

James Naughtie and readers meet Chinese author Xiaolu Guo to talk about her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. It is a story about discovery, language and understanding, and how cultural differences can sometimes be too great for a relationship to last.

As he prepares to leave the post, Andrew Motion talks to James Naughtie about his 10 years as Poet Laureate. He discusses his collection Public Property, which was the first to be published after he became Poet Laureate. Some of the poems were written to mark or celebrate events or people. Others reveal some of his own strongest influences - the countryside, his upbringing and his parents as well as poets he most admires, including Wordsworth, Keats, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin.

James Naughtie talks to the author and part-time stand-up comedian AL Kennedy about her 2007 Costa prize-winning novel, Day, the story of RAF gunner Alfred Day and how he comes to terms with the end of the Second World War.

James Naughtie talks to the novelist Bernard Cornwell. He joins an audience of readers to discuss the first novel in his series set in Saxon England, The Last Kingdom. The novel centres on the story of Uhtred Ragnarson, a Northumbrian boy captured by the invading Vikings and raised as one of their own, who returns to the Saxons after the Danish warrior who raised him is killed.

James Naughtie talks to the psychologist Oliver James. He joins an audience of readers to put his case against 'affluenza', a virus which he says is sweeping through the English-speaking world. Written just before the advent of the credit crunch, he points out that the aspiration to and trappings of affluence might be emotionally harmful.

James Naughtie talks to the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. He joins an audience of readers to discuss his novel The Glass Palace.

James Naughtie and Fay Weldon join an audience of readers to discuss her novel The Cloning of Joanna May, first published in 1989. She has written over 30 novels but maintains that this is the one that she is most proud of, with its characteristic black humour and impressive prescience about the science of cloning and how it might affect the human race.

James Naughtie talks to Michael Morpurgo about his novel Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea, inspired by the history of English orphans transported to Australia after the Second World War.

James Naughtie talks to one of the great American men of letters - novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, raconteur and notorious wit Gore Vidal. Now in his eighties but with his acerbity still intact, Vidal joins an audience of readers to discuss his memoir Point to Point Navigation.

Irish writer Colm Toibin joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his Man Booker shortlisted novel The Master, a fictionalised account of five years in the life of Henry James. James is often thought of as a writer's writer and Toibin's story explores the difference and the tension between the master novelist and the private man, anxious, troubled and unsure.

With James Naughtie. Norwegian author Asne Seierstad discusses The Bookseller of Kabul, the novelisation of her time in Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent just after 9/11.

Jan Morris joins James Naughtie and readers to talk about her portrait of the city of Venice. The book, simply entitled Venice, was written nearly fifty years ago.

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie joins James Naughtie and readers to talk about Half of a Yellow Sun, winner of last year's Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction.

Poet Simon Armitage joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his translation of the Middle English epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers are joined by William Hague to discuss his biography of William Pitt the Younger, who became the youngest ever prime minister in 1783.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers discuss Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus, an erotic thriller set in Renaissance Florence.

James Naughtie and readers meet American author Alice Sebold to discuss her debut novel The Lovely Bones, which remained on the New York Times hardback bestseller list for a year.

James Naughtie and readers meet the 1982 Booker Prize winner Thomas Keneally. The chosen book is Schindler's Ark, which remains one of the best evocations of the Holocaust.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers discuss American author Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers talk to James Robertson about his historical novel Joseph Knight, winner of two major Scottish literary prizes in 2003/4.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers discuss Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, which began as a newspaper column and became a best-selling series of novels.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers talk to Colin Dexter about The Remorseful Day, Chief Inspector Morse's last case.

James Naughtie is joined by Germaine Greer to discuss her groundbreaking book The Female Eunuch. Published in 1970, the book changed women's lives and has been in print ever since.

From the Hay Festival, James Naughtie and an audience of readers talk to David Mitchell about Cloud Atlas, the novel that made him an overnight literary star.

James Naughtie and an audience talk to author Jodi Picoult. Her novel My Sister's Keeper is about a young girl who sues her parents for the right to make her own decisions.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers talk to comic fiction author Jonathan Coe, who discusses his novel What A Carve Up!

Eleanor of Aquitaine was the most powerful and enigmatic woman of her age. Historian Alison Weir discusses her biography of Eleanor with James Naughtie and a group of readers.

Val McDermid joins readers to discuss The Mermaids Singing, the story of a serial killer who stalks the gay subculture of a northern town. James Naughtie presents.

The author Jonathan Franzen discusses his novel The Corrections with James Naughtie and a group of readers at the British Library in London.

James Naughtie discusses Miss Garnet's Angel with its author Salley Vickers. The novel tells the tale of a retired teacher discovering love and art in Venice.

Under discussion is the scientist Lewis Wolpert's account of his experience of depression in Malignant Sadness. Wolpert joins readers and James Naughtie to discuss his approach to this debilitating disease.

James Naughtie talks to author Jane Gardam about her book Old Filth.

James Naughtie is joined by author Matthew Kneale, whose book English Passengers won Whitbread Book of the Year in 2000. They discuss this rampant and ambitious piece of writing that deals with big ideas like radical theory, genocide and Darwinism, yet is hilarious too.

In the 100th edition of Bookclub, James Naughtie is joined by American crime writer Elmore Leonard to discuss his book Rum Punch. The novel is set in Florida and features the character Jackie Burke, who became Jackie Brown in the film of the same name by Quentin Tarantino.

James Naughtie is joined by John Berendt to talk about his book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The story tells of what John Berendt experienced in Savannah, Georgia, in the early 1990s when the town was turned upside-down by a strange murder.

James Naughtie is joined by Lindsey Davis to discuss her thriller Time to Depart, about investigator Marcus Didius Falco, a kind of 1950s gumshoe detective, operating in the teeming bustle of Rome.

James Naughtie is joined in Brighton by novelist Ali Smith to talk about her book Hotel World.

Malorie Blackman joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss Noughts and Crosses, her novel set in an alternative reality in which people are either a Cross, with money, prospects and position, or a Nought, with very little.

Lionel Shriver joins James Naughtie and a studio audience to discuss her book We Need to Talk About Kevin, a novel about an unloved son who grows up to commit a horrifying crime.

James Naughtie is joined by American satirist P J O'Rourke to discuss Holidays in Hell, his account of his experiences as foreign correspondent for Rolling Stone Magazine in the late 1980s.

James Naughtie is joined by George Macdonald Fraser to talk about his Flashman books which use Thomas Hughes' bully character from Tom Brown's Schooldays.

American writer Joyce Carol Oates joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss We Were the Mulvaneys, the story of the break-up of a family after the random disaster of a rape.

James Naughtie is joined by historian Antonia Fraser to discuss her book The Gunpowder Plot.

Playwright, screenwriter, novelist and film-maker Hanif Kureishi discusses his semi-autobiographical book The Buddha of Suburbia with James Naughtie and readers.

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier was Radio 4's Classic Serial in August. The novel cast a spell over a whole generation of French readers in the twentieth century, with its romanticism, its portrayal of adolescent friendship and its evocation of pastoral France. But does it still speak to readers today? Novelist and poet Michele Roberts is our Bookclub guide to the novel with readers in Paris including teachers and students. Recorded at the studios of Radio France.

James Naughtie talks to crime writer Michael Dibdin in front of a group of readers, about his novel Blood Rain, the ninth in his Aurelio Zen series.

James Naughtie talks to Dr Oliver Sacks about The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, a collection of case studies into neurological disorders, all written from the point of view of the Dr.

James Naughtie is joined by Sue Townsend to discuss the life of her best loved comic creation Adrian Mole.

Andrea Levy, who won last year's Orange Prize and Whitbread Prize for her novel Small Island joins readers to discuss the book.

James Naughtie is joined by American writer Richard Ford to discuss his novel, Independence Day.

The multi-talented Stephen Fry discusses and reads from his acclaimed novel The Hippopotamus, about a failed poet turned whiskey-sodden critic.

James Naughtie talks to author Bill Bryson about his book A Short History of Nearly Everything.

James Naughtie talks to Zadie Smith about the impact of her debut novel White Teeth.

James Naughtie's guest is Carol Ann Duffy, one of the most widely read British poets, talking about her inventive and funny collection, The World's Wife.

Booker prize winner Pat Barker joins James Naughtie to discuss Regeneration, her novel about the impact of the First World War on a variety of characters including poet Siegfried Sassoon.

Will Self talks to James Naughtie and readers about his novel How The Dead Live.

James Naughtie speaks to author Paul Auster about the novellas in his New York Trilogy and their themes of identity, mystery and ambiguity.

James Naughtie and a group of readers are joined by Muriel Spark to discuss her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

James Naughtie presents a special interview with Terry Pratchett to talk about Mort, his fourth installment of the Discworld series.

James Naughtie presents a book discussion as Minette Walters talks with readers about her new novel The Scold's Bridle.

David Lodge is both a leading comic novelist and a renowned literary critic. He dicusses his novel Nice Work with James Naughtie.

Elizabeth Jane Howard joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to discuss her book Falling, based on a real life failed relationship.

Sarah Waters, creator of Victorian romps, joins James Naughtie to talk about Fingersmith, a gothic tale of crime, swapped identities and mysterious parentage.

Peter Carey joins James Naughtie and a group of readers, to discuss his novel the True History of the Kelly Gang.

Sir John Mortimer joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to discuss Rumpole and the Younger Generation as well as his first volume of memoirs.

Peter Ackroyd joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to discuss, and read from, his spooky novel Hawksmoor.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Esther Freud about her semi-autobiographical first novel Hideous Kinky.

Melvin Burgess joins James Naughtie and a group of younger readers to discuss Junk, his hard hiting novel about teenage runaways and heroin. Recorded at Longsight Library, Manchester.

Edna O'Brien joins James Naughtie and a group of readers at the British Library to talk about her book Down by the River.

Amanda Foreman joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to talk about her hugely sucessful biography of the 18th century socialite, Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire. Recorded at the British Library.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to T. C. Boyle about his novel The Tortilla Curtain.

Sally Beauman, author of the story of the first Mrs De Winter in Rebecca's Tale, joins James Naughtie and a group of readers at the Daphne Du Maurier literary festival in Cornwall to discuss Rebecca.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers meets crime writer P. D. James to discuss her novel Original Sin. Recorded at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers meet the distinguished novelist Beryl Bainbridge to discuss her novel An Awfully Big Adventure, which draws on her days as an actress in the Liverpool Playhouse.

William Trevor, long recognised as a master of the short story, talks to James Naughtie and an audience about his collection After Rain. Reading by the author recorded at Dr Johnson's House, in the City of London.

James Naughtie presents a discussion with Salman Rushdie about his Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight's Children.

James Naughtie and an audience of readers meet the much-loved author Alan Bennett to discuss his memoir Writing Home.

James Naughtie and a group of readers at Beaufort Polo Club, talk to bestselling author Jilly Cooper about her racy novel Polo.

James Naughtie and a younger than usual audience meet bestselling children's author Jacqueline Wilson to discuss her award-winning book the Illustrated Mum.

Barbara Vine, otherwise known as Ruth Rendell, meets James Naughtie and a small audience at a Readers' Day in Scunthorpe to talk about her haunting novel A Dark Adapted Eye.

James Naughtie and a studio audience talk to travel writer William Dalrymple about his book From the Holy Mountain.

James Naughtie and a studio audience talk to Maya Angelou about volume one of her groundbreaking autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

A group of readers join James Naughtie to talk to David Grossman about his book See Under Love.

James Naughtie and a studio audience meet Michael Frayn to talk about Headlong, his prize-winning romp through the corrupt corridors of the art world past and present.

James Naughtie talks to one of South America's leading writers Mario Vargas Llosa, about his remarkable novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

A group of readers join James Naughtie to talk to Kazuo Ishiguro about The Remains of The Day, his acclaimed novel about life above and below stairs in the years leading up to World War II.

James Naughtie and a studio audience meet Rose Tremain to discuss her winner of the 1999 Whitbread Novel award about 17th century Denmark, Music and Silence.

James Naughtie and a studio audience talk to acclaimed writer J G Ballard about his classic Second World War novel Empire of the Sun.

James Naughtie and a group of readers meet bestselling Edinburgh crime writer Ian Rankin in Inspector Rebus' favourite watering hole The Oxford Bar to talk about two of his novels: Knots and Crosses and The Falls.

James Naughtie and a studio audience meet novelist Nick Hornby to discuss About A Boy; his insight into laddishness, masculine wish-fulfilment, fear and love.

James Naughtie and a studio audience meet prize-winning novelist Helen Dunmore to discuss her compelling novel of maternal passions and sisterly intrigue, Talking to the Dead.

James Naughtie and a group of listeners celebrate National Poetry week by looking at the work of Wendy Cope, one of Britain's most popular poets. With readings of some of her best known poems.

A group of readers join James Naughtie to talk to the Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing about her first novel The Grass is Singing.

Martin Amis is this month's guest on Bookclub to discuss his acclaimed novel London Fields with a small group of readers and presenter James Naughtie.

James Naughtie and a studio audience talks to Chinese-American writer Amy Tan about her acclaimed novel The Kitchen God's Wife.

James Naughtie meets with Annie Proulx and a group of readers to discuss her acclaimed novel of life, love and death in far-flung Newfoundland, The Shipping News.

James Naughtie and acclaimed American crime author James Ellroy are guests of the Royal Navy on HMS Illustrious where they and the crew discuss Ellroy's classic thriller noir, The Black Dahlia.

James Naughtie meets Margaret Drabble and a group of readers to talk about her searing portrait of English middle class life, The Witch of Exmoor.

James Naughtie meets mountaineer Joe Simpson to talk about his nail-biting, prize-winning book Touching the Void.

James Naughtie meets Penelope Lively and talks to her about her Booker Prize winning novel Moon Tiger in the company of the reading circle at Nightingale residential Home for Older People.

In a special edition of the programme, James Naughtie visits HMP Coldingley with writer Tony Parsons to discuss his hugely successful book Man and Boy with the prisoners' reading circle.

James Naughtie and an audience meet Booker-prize winning novelist Graham Swift to talk about Waterland, his much acclaimed novel of love, loss and madness in the Fens.

James Naughtie discusses The Miller's Tale from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer with Dr Ruth Evans and an audience of readers.

Ian McEwan talks about his tale of stalking, science and psychology, the bestselling ‘Enduring Love’. In 2000, he joined readers and Jim Naughtie, on Radio 4’s Bookclub to discuss his 1997 novel. Producer: Karen Holden First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.

This month's choice is Joanna Trollope's Other People's Children; a multi-layered contemporary tale of broken homes and family imperfections, and where the step-mother defies convention and has the hardest time of all. James Naughtie and readers discuss the book with the author.

This month's choice is Antony Beevor's Stalingrad; a gripping account of the horrors of the battle that was Hitler's big mistake and the turning point of World War II. James Naughtie and readers discuss the book with the author.

James Naughtie and a group of readers discuss the novel Fasting, Feasting with its author, Anita Desai, who also reads an extract from the book.

James Naughtie and a group of readers discuss the novel In The Springtime Of The Year with its author Susan Hill, who also reads an excerpt from her book.

The author Philip Pullman discusses his fantasy novel Northern Lights with James Naughtie.

Author Charles Frazier discusses his bestseller Cold Mountain with James Naughtie and a group of readers. Recorded at the Politics and Prose book in Washington DC.

Pulitzer prize-winning author Carol Shields discusses her book Larry's Party with presenter James Naughtie and a group of readers. She also reads an excerpt from the novel.

Author Isabel Allende discusses her novel The House of the Spirits with presenter James Naughtie and a group of readers, and reads an excerpt from the book.

In a special edition of the programme, James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Douglas Adams about his classic world-wide bestseller The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to writer Julian Barnes about his fascination with the 19th century French novelist Gustave Flaubert.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Dava Sobel about her international bestseller Longitude.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Canadian writer Anne Michaels about her prize-winning novel, Fugitive Pieces.

James Naughtie visits Cumbria where he and author Margaret Forster talk to a group of readers in Cockermouth Library about her novel Private Papers.

James Naughtie a group of young readers talk to author J. K. Rowling about her phenomenally successful book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, from which she also reads an extract.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to writer Kate Atkinson about her prize-winning novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

James Naughtie is joined by author David Guterson to discuss his novel Snow Falling on Cedars.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Margaret Atwood about Cat's Eye, her highly successful novel depicting the agonies of childhood cruelty.

James Naughtie is joined by the author of Catch 22, Joseph Heller, and a group of readers to discuss the book which captivated a generation.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author William Boyd about his prize-winning book, Brazzaville Beach.

James Naughtie and a group of readers from the Morrab Library, Penzance, Cornwall talk to John Le Carré about his Cold War spy trilogy Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to American author Jane Smiley about A Thousand Acres, her novel based on the King Lear story.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author A S Byatt about her novel Possession.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to Andrew Davies about William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel, Vanity Fair, which he has adapted for BBC television.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to the Irish-American author, Frank McCourt about his bestselling memoir Angela's Ashes.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to writer Jung Chang about her award-winning family history Wild Swans.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Louis de Bernières about his international best-seller Captain Corelli's Mandolin, set in Greece during the Second World War.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Robert Harris about his international bestseller Fatherland.

James Naughtie talks to author Toni Morrison about her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beloved.

In the first edition of this new programme, James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author, Sebastian Faulks, about his best-selling novel, Birdsong.