Bookclub

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 DonoghueProduced 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 FlynnApril'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 AldermanProducer : 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 TarttProducer : 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 FlynnDecember'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 TherouxProducer : 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 MoggachProducer : 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 ClarkeProducer : 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 MillerProduced 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 OrwellProducer : 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 AlmondProducer : 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 HislopProducer : 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 FlynnAugust'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 RaisinUp coming recordings - ELIZABETH TAYLOR - MRS PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONTDAVID BADDIEL WILL BE OUR GUIDE TO THIS NOVELMonday 28 May 5.40pm BBC Bush House Aldwych London WC2 4PHTo apply for tickets, go to the BBC Radio 4 website and follow the links to BookclubProducer : 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 FlynnMarch'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 FlynnFebruary'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 FlynnDecember'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 ZephaniahProducer: 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 JacobsonProducer : 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.