Bookclub

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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