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 Palesti...
Nov 01, 2009•27 min
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....
Oct 04, 2009•28 min
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 co...
Sep 06, 2009•27 min
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.
Aug 02, 2009•27 min
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.
Jul 05, 2009•28 min
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'....
Jun 07, 2009•28 min
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.
May 03, 2009•27 min
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.
Apr 05, 2009•28 min
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.
Mar 01, 2009•28 min
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.
Feb 01, 2009•28 min
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.
Jan 04, 2009•27 min
James Naughtie talks to the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. He joins an audience of readers to discuss his novel The Glass Palace.
Dec 07, 2008•28 min
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.
Nov 02, 2008•28 min
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.
Oct 05, 2008•27 min
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.
Sep 07, 2008•28 min
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.
Aug 03, 2008•27 min
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.
Jul 06, 2008•27 min
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.
Jun 01, 2008•28 min
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.
May 04, 2008•27 min
Poet Simon Armitage joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his translation of the Middle English epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Apr 06, 2008•28 min
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.
Mar 02, 2008•27 min
James Naughtie and an audience of readers discuss Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus, an erotic thriller set in Renaissance Florence.
Feb 03, 2008•28 min
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.
Jan 06, 2008•28 min
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.
Dec 02, 2007•28 min
James Naughtie and an audience of readers discuss American author Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible.
Nov 04, 2007•28 min
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.
Oct 07, 2007•27 min
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.
Sep 02, 2007•27 min
James Naughtie and an audience of readers talk to Colin Dexter about The Remorseful Day, Chief Inspector Morse's last case.
Aug 05, 2007•28 min
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.
Jul 01, 2007•28 min
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.
Jun 03, 2007•27 min
