Bookclub

Simon Armitage talks to James Naughtie about his translation of the Middle English epic.

American author Meg Wolitzer discusses her novel The Interestings, which follows a group of friends from teenage years through to middle age and marriage and children.Aged 15, the group first meet at on a warm night at Spirit in the Woods summer camp in 1974. They drink, smoke pot and share their dreams and vow always to be interesting. Although not strictly an autobiographical novel, the idea for the book came from Meg's own experience as a teenager at summer camp in the same era and how the experience can give young people the opportunity to re-invent themselves. What links the six teenagers in The Interestings is their creativity – but how many of them will be successful in their chosen fields? Decades later, aspiring actress Jules has resigned herself to a more practical occupation, Cathy has stopped dancing, Jonah has laid down his guitar and Goodman (a bit of a misnomer) has disappeared. Only the animator Ethan and theatre director Ash, now married, have remained true to their adolescent dreams and have become shockingly successful.As the group's fortunes tilt, their friendships are put under strain and Meg Wolitzer explains to Bookclub how the strain of envy and disappointment drives the story.Meg Wolitzer has been enjoying great success this autumn with the film version of her novel about a Nobel prize winning writer, The Wife. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Meg Wolitzer Producer : Dymphna FlynnJanuary 2019's Bookclub choice : The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (2014)

The Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser.

Andrew Michael Hurley discusses his book The Loney which won the Costa First Novel Award in 2015. Recorded with an audience at the Liverpool Literary Festival and presented by James Naughtie. First published in a print run of just 300 copies by a small press, The Loney went on to win The Costa First Novel Award and Book of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards 2015. This gothic novel is set on a bleak stretch of the Lancashire coast near Morecambe Bay called The Loney, which is infamous for its dangerous waters. In 1976, The congregation of St Jude’s Catholic church in London head north, on pilgrimage to a holy shrine, near The Loney, hoping to cure Hanny, a boy who’s been mute since birth. His brother, who is unnamed throughout the novel, narrates the story in the present day.The retreat is led by the newly installed parish priest, Father Bernard McGill, who struggles to shake off the ghost of his predecessor, the hardline Father Wilfred. Meanwhile, the rain sweeps in off the sea and the tides come and go, shifting the sands, burying and obscuring.There's a mysterious death at the heart of the novel; complicated and destructive family relationships, and running through it all a story of faith and superstition, imagination and fear. To the author's delight it was described as 'an amazing piece of fiction' by the master of modern gothic himself, Stephen King.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Andrew Michael Hurley Producer : Dymphna FlynnDecember's Bookclub choice : The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (2013)

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard discusses A Death in the Family, which is the first part of My Struggle, his series of memoirs which have a devoted following.Already a successful novelist in his native Norway, almost ten years ago Knausgaard embarked on a huge project: a first person narrative about his life. In A Death in the Family he writes with painful honesty about his childhood and teenage years, his infatuation with rock music, his relationship with his loving yet almost invisible mother and his distant and dangerously unpredictable father, and then his bewilderment and grief on his father's death. Becoming a father himself, he has to balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature. The series is an exploration of the author’s past from which emerges a universal story of the struggles, great and small, that we all face in our lives. Karl Ove Knausgaard writes with honesty about his upbringing, causing ructions in his family. He says he always knew that whatever he wrote, he would have to be able to look his family members in the eye. My Struggle finally ran to six volumes, and the last one The End, has just been published in the UK. The series became a literary sensation in his native Norway as well as around the world. Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Karl Ove Knausgaard Producer : Dymphna FlynnNovember's Bookclub choice : The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (2014)

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

James Naughtie and Madeline Miller discuss her debut novel The Song of Achilles which won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. In The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller presents a love story against the backdrop of the Trojan war - between Achilles, leading the Greek army, and his best friend Patroclus. Her imagined relationship between the two men explains the emotional support that Achilles gets from Patroclus, the strength of the bond between them and the depth of Achilles' grief at his friend's death.Recorded with a group of invited readers.October's Bookclub Choice : A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2014)Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Madeline Miller Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

A treat from the Bookclub archive celebrating our 20th anniversary

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).