Bookclub

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 DoyleProducer : 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.