Bookclub

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 FlynnSeptember'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 FlynnAugust'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 FlynnJuly'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 FlynnApril'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 FlynnFebruary'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 FlynnDecember'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 NaughtiePresenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Peter Høeg Producer : Dymphna FlynnNovember'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 FlynnJune'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 FlynnMay'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 FlynnApril'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 FlynnMarch'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 FlynnFebruary'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 FlynnJanuary'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

David Nicholls talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about his enormously successful novel One Day.The book has now sold over 5 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 2009. It's the will-they-won't they story of Dexter and Emma, who get together on their last day at Edinburgh University in the late 80s, and whom we meet in the novel every July 15th for the next twenty years. It is in turns moving, stylish and funny.David Nicholls discusses how cinema and tv and his work as an actor influenced the writing of this novel, as well as his love of Hardy and Dickens. Looking back at the novel, having not read it for four years, he is honest about how he might write it differently, if he was allowed.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : David Nicholls Producer : Dymphna FlynnOctober's Bookclub choice : Married Love by Tessa Hadley (2012).

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 FlynnJune'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 FlynnMarch's Bookclub choice : When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith.