World Book Club
The world's great authors discuss their best-known novel.
Episodes
In the Studio: The Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry has English history stitched into its fabric, depicting the last time the country was invaded, by William the Conqueror in 1066. France has been its home since then. But now thanks to high-level negotiations involving President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles III, it will be on display at the British Museum until next summer. Ten colours of woollen thread were used create batt
Steve Levine: Revisiting the Beach Boys
Steve Levine is a multi-award winning British record producer. He has produced albums for stars ranging from Deniece Williams to China Crisis; from Ziggy Marley to Quarterflash; as well as being producer of Culture Club’s first three multi-platinum selling albums from the 1980s.
In 1984 Steve won Producer Of The Year at The Brit Awards, and in 1988 he won a Grammy Award for his work with Deniece
Daniyal Mueenuddin : This is Where the Serpent Lives
Harriett talks with Daniyal Mueenuddin about This Is Where the Serpent Lives.Daniyal's debut novel is a rich and compelling portrait of contemporary Pakistan, following the intertwined lives of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are shaped by love, ambition, loyalty and betrayal. Set against the backdrop of a vast rural estate, the novel explores the lives of servants and landowners, dreamer
Introducing: Artists at Work
Harriett Gilbert welcomes you to the Artists at Work podcast feed, the home of arts and culture from BBC World Service, where World Book Club will be joined by In the Studio and the Arts Hour. In The Studio follows the world’s leading creative figures while they work. Nikki Bedi hosts The Arts Hour, with news of the latest releases from around the world, and in World Book Club Harriett Gilbert put
Kaarina Parker: Fulvia
Kaarina Parker talks about her debut novel set in ancient Rome - Fulvia. The novel tells the tale of Fulvia, the daughter of a wealthy but inconsequential Roman family. Raised in the country, she yearns for excitement, for power. When her father dies and her inheritance is threatened, Fulvia makes her way to Rome to forge her own fate.There she marries a young aristocrat named Clodius, who is more
Rachel Kushner: The Mars Room
American author Rachel Kusher talks about her award-winning novel, The Mars Room. The novel follows Romy Hall, as she begins two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, after killing her stalker.The story weaves between the two sides of Romy’s existence. First, the prison world where women struggle for the bare essentials of life. Second, the San Francisco of her you
Karin Slaughter: The Good Daughter
World Book Club welcomes Karin Slaughter to answer your questions about her brutal, heart-rending thriller, The Good Daughter.28 years after the murder of their mother, another horrific crime forces sisters Sam and Charlie Quinn to confront the truth about the night that shattered their family so long ago.Karin will be asking your questions about her attitude to violence in her novels, the dynamic
John Connolly - The Book of Lost Things
Harriett Gilbert welcomes John Connolly to World Book Club to answer your question on his beautiful, but twisted fairy tale - The Book of Lost Things.
Set in the Second World War. The novel tells the tale of twelve-year-old David, who mourns the death of his mother while shut up in his attic bedroom with only his books for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him, tempting him... As
Ragnar Jonasson: The Darkness
Octavia Bright talks to Ragnar Jónasson about his shocking thriller, The Darkness.When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is unceremoniously told she is being forced into early retirement, she is given the chance to work on one last Cold Case, anything she likes. The case she chooses to revive is centred on the death of a Russian asylum seeker, a 27-year-old woman who had been found dead on
Laurent Binet - HHhH
Harriett Gilbert welcomes the French author Laurent Binet to the World Book Club studio to answer your questions about his acclaimed novel HHhH.The book tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, and the daring mission carried out by Czech resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Prague. At the same time, Binet places himself into the narra
Linwood Barclay - Take Your Breath Away
Harriett Gilbert welcomes master of suspense, the Canadian author Linwood Barclay in the World Book Club Studio, to answer your questions about his thriller 'Take Your Breath Away'.The story centres on Andrew Mason, whose wife Brie vanished six years ago, making him the prime suspect. But just as he’s beginning to rebuild his life, a mysterious woman resembling Brie suddenly appears, forcing him t
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - The Palace of Illusions
Harriett Gilbert welcomes bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni into the World Book Club studio to discuss her internationally acclaimed novel, The Palace of Illusions.A luminous reimagining of the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharat, The Palace of Illusions traces the life of Princess Panchaali—better known as Draupadi—from her miraculous birth in fire to her destiny as the wife of five b
Philippa Gregory: The Other Boleyn Girl
Harriett Gilbert welcomes bestselling author Philippa Gregory into the World Book Club studio to discuss her celebrated historical novel, The Other Boleyn Girl.This novel, about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, is a vivid portrayal of ambition, love, and betrayal in the Tudor Court, told from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, sister to the ill-fated Anne. As Mary becomes the mistress of King Henry
Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, The Serial Killer
Harriett Gilbert welcomes Nigerian author Oyinkan Braithwaite into the World Book Club studio to discuss her internationally bestselling debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer — a darkly comic thriller that has captivated readers around the globe.This is the story of two sisters, Korede, the responsible and overlooked older sibling, and Ayoola, the beautiful younger sister with a deadly secret. When
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexican Gothic
Harriett is joined by Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her chilling bestseller Mexican Gothic. The story begins when Noemí Taboada, a glamorous socialite from 1950s Mexico City, receives a desperate letter from her cousin Catalina, claiming her new husband is poisoning her. Unsure if Catalina is mad or truly in danger, Noemí rushes to High Place - a decaying English manor transplanted to the Mexica
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles
Join us for a special episode of World Book Club as we journey into the fog-shrouded moors of Devon to explore The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle—arguably the most iconic and enduring novel in the Sherlock Holmes canon. First published in 1902, this gothic masterpiece has captivated readers for over a century and remains a cornerstone of detective fiction.Harriett Gilbert is joine
Juhea Kim - Beasts of a Little Land
Harriett Gilbert talks with Juhea Kim about her debut novel Beasts of a Little Land.Set during the turbulent years of Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, this sweeping historical epic traces the lives of two unforgettable characters: Jade, a young girl sold to a courtesan school, and JungHo, the orphaned son of a hunter who becomes swept up in the Communist resistance. Over five dec
Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project
On this episode of ‘World Book Club’ Harriett Gilbert speaker with with Graeme Macrae Burnet about his riveting historical crime novel ‘His Bloody Project’.Set in a remote Scottish community in the 1800s, the story centres on a brutal triple murder and the person who admits guilt for the bloody deed - a 17 year old boy. This boy, Roderick Macrae, is shy, intelligent, and remarkably articulate. Cou
N.K Jemisin - The City We Became
In this episode of World Book Club, Harriet talks with one of the world’s best-loved sci-fi and fantasy authors, the four time Hugo award winner N.K Jemisin.
Which of her plethora of books did we choose? Her 10th novel, and love letter to New York, ‘The City We Became’.The story takes place in a world in which major cities become sentient, living beings. After New York is attacked by an otherworld
Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise
Harriett Gilbert talks with Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah about his hauntingly beautiful novel Paradise.It tells the story of Yusuf, a 12 year-old boy living in East Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century. Sold off to settle his father’s debts, Yusuf embarks on a journey across the African continent. Through his naive and innocent eyes, the journey starts out as an adventure, but every won
Michelle de Kretser: Scary Monsters
Harriett Gilbert talks with Michelle de Kretser about her eighth novel, Scary Monsters, which won the 2023 Rathbones Folio Fiction Prize.This diptych novel consists of the tale of two immigrants, one in the past, and one in a dystopian future that seems all too possible. Which story to start with? That’s the reader’s decision. In the past, Lili. Her family migrated to Australia from Asia when she
Ottessa Moshfegh: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Harriett Gilbert is joined by one of the boldest writers of her generation, Ottessa Moshfegh, to delve into her second novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. This twisted Sleeping Beauty story is told from the perspective of an unnamed protagonist, a twentysomething art school graduate who, after the death of her parents, quits her gallery job to heal her pain by drugging herself into a year-long h
Meg Rosoff: How I Live Now
Novelist Meg Rosoff joins Harriett Gilbert to answer listeners' questions about one of her best-loved novels, How I Live Now.It is the story of Daisy, an American teenager shipped off to live with her aunt and cousins in England. What is at first an idyllic escape into English countryside life is shattered at the onset of War, when England is suddenly occupied by an unknown enemy. Daisy finds hers
World Book Café: Oslo
World Book Café heads to Oslo to Europe’s largest Literature House to find out if Norway is the best place in the world to be a writer? Octavia Bright is joined to discuss the highs and lows by the internationally bestselling novelist and climate activist Maja Lunde. Johan Harstad prize winning novelist and the first in-house writer at the National Theatre in Oslo, Gunnhild Oyehaug whose witty and
Anne Holt: 1,222
A special programme from the largest public literature house in Europe, Litteraturhuset in Oslo. Harriett Gilbert is joined by one of Scandinavia’s most successful crime writers, Anne Holt. Her novel 1,222 is a tense, twisty story set during a snowstorm in an isolated mountain hotel, a reference to the fact that the hotel is one thousand, two hundred and twenty-two metres above sea level. It featu
Douglas Stuart: Shuggie Bain
The Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart talks about his Booker Prize winning Shuggie Bain. The powerful, heartbreaking story of a young boy's love for his addict mother, and a mother's chaotic love for her son.Photo credit: Martyn Pickersgill
Kate Mosse: Labyrinth
Ahead of its 20th anniversary early next year, the author Kate Mosse talks to Harriett Gilbert and readers from around the world, about her globally bestselling novel, Labyrinth. It’s a historical thriller set between medieval and contemporary France where the lives of two women, living centuries apart, are linked in a common destiny. In 13th century Carcassonne, seventeen-year-old Alaïs is given
Elif Batuman
In this month’s edition of BBC World Book Club bestselling American writer Elif Batuman discusses her acclaimed debut novel. ‘The Idiot’ follows Selin, a Turkish-American fresher at Harvard in the mid-1990s, delving into her experiences as she navigates the challenges of university life, grappling with identity, language, and the complexities of relationships, romantic and otherwise. Selin becomes
Ewald Arenz: Tasting Sunlight
German author Ewald Arenz answers readers' questions about his bestselling novel Tasting Sunlight. It’s the moving story of Liss, a reclusive woman who single-handedly runs her family farm, and teenage runaway Sally who takes refuge there. As they work together, Liss and Sally form an unlikely – and nurturing – friendship.Image: Ewald Arenz (Credit: Tristar Media/Getty Images)
Women of the World: Edna O’Brien
In one of the last broadcast interviews, the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, is in conversation with Kim Chakanetsa. In this bonus episode, shediscusses her final novel, Girl – which tells the story of a young girl in Nigeria who is captured by the Islamist group Boko Haram – the effects of lockdown and her love of writing and literature from around the world…
Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Another chance to hear Harriett Gilbert talking to bestselling American writer Paul Auster, who died earlier this year on 30 April 2024. Paul Auster joined Harriett in 2012, with a literary festival audience and readers from around the world, to discuss his acclaimed work The New York Trilogy. In three brilliant variations on the classic detective story, Auster makes the well-traversed terrain of
Edna O'Brien: The Country Girls
Following the death of the Irish author Edna O’Brien in July 2024, another chance to hear a 2008 World Book Club episode in which she talked to Harriett Gilbert and an audience of readers about her renowned debut novel The Country Girls. Banned in her homeland on publication, it has become one of O’Brien’s most admired and renowned works.Producer: Oliver JonesImage: Edna O'Brien, pictured in 2009
World Book Cafe: Toronto
Toronto is a bustling city on Lake Ontario which is growing at an astonishing rate. Almost a third of Torontonians have arrived in the last decade and more than half were born outside of Canada. The city’s Mohawk name is , which means “the place on the water where the trees are standing".
Noah Richler explores the fictional landscape of the city with four of its exciting writers from different gen
Kevin Kwan: Crazy Rich Asians
Kevin Kwan discusses his internationally best-selling novel, Crazy Rich Asians, with readers from around the world. Chinese-American academic Rachel Chu lives a modest and happy life with her boyfriend and fellow academic Nick. But when Nick invites her home to Singapore to meet the family, everything changes – starting with the first class flights. Saturated with wildly wealthy and deliciously dy
Miriam Toews: Women Talking
In Miriam Toews’s novel, Women Talking, the women of a remote Mennonite colony are hold secret meetings to talk about the crimes of the men who they live alongside. After years of being told that they were suffering from hysterical delusions, the women “came to understand that they were collectively dreaming one dream, and that it wasn’t a dream at all.” Women Talking is a response to the real lif
Percival Everett: The Trees
Percival Everett will be discussing his Booker-shortlisted novel The Trees. This powerful and fiercely funny satire centring on revenge and racial justice in America shifts genres between police procedural, magical realism and horror with wit and consummate skill. Percival Everett addresses some of America’s darkest history with an unusual mix of playfulness and political seriousness.
Charlotte Wood: The Weekend
Award-winning Australian novelist Charlotte Wood joins Harriett Gilbert to answer questions from readers around the world about her novel, The Weekend. It's a story of grief and friendship; three women meet to clear their deceased friend’s beach house and find themselves uncovering secrets and stirring up memories.(Image: Charlotte Wood. Photo credit: Carly Earl.)
Ann Patchett: The Dutch House
Multi award-winning novelist Ann Patchett will be discussing The Dutch House. A dark modern fairytale set against the very real world of post-WWII Philadelphia, tracing the love between a brother and sister, their vanishing mother, distant father and jealous stepmother. Ann Patchett tells the story of a family over five decades with a finely balanced mixture of wit and heartbreak.(Image: Ann Patc
Madrid
World Book Café heads to Madrid to talk to writers about a new boom in feminist fiction. A few month after the resignation of President of the Spanish Football Federation over a non-consensual kiss of footballer Jenni Hermoso at the World Cup final, World Book Café investigates how Madrid’s women writers are challenging gender roles in the books world.
Carlo Rovelli: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to acclaimed Italian physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli about his runaway bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.A compact and engaging exploration of some of the most fundamental ideas in modern physics this book takes readers on a captivating journey through seven concise chapters, each dedicated to a different topic. From the theor
Antonio Muñoz Molina: In the Night of Time
Antonio Muñoz Molina answers questions from around the world on his novel In the Night of Time. The panoramic portrait of Spain on the brink of civil war follows the life of Ignacio Abel, master builder and architect, as he navigates an illicit love affair with an American woman as the darkness of war surrounds him. Recorded in the prestigious Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.(Photo: Antonio Muñ
Shehan Karunatilaka: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Harriett Gilbert and readers around the globe talk to acclaimed Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka about his Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.Almeida, a gay war photographer, recently deceased, with secrets aplenty, awakes to find himself sitting in line in an ethereal visa office, determined to find out who has murdered him. In a Sri Lanka beset by civil war, death s
AS Byatt - Possession
English author A. S Byatt talks to an audience about her novel 'Possession'. First broadcast in March 2004(Photo: A S Byatt. Credit:BBC)
Xiaolu Guo: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Xiaolu Guo talks about her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. The book was her first written in English and made prestigious fiction shortlists on publication in 2007.Twenty-three year old Zhuang – or Z as she’s called in England because no-one can pronounce her name – arrives to spend a year learning English. The loneliness and strangeness of the city are overwhelming, but as
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American writer Michael Chabon talks about his 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.From Jewish mysticism to Houdini to the Golden Age of Comic Books and WWII, Chabon’s immersive novel deals with escape and transformation through the lives of two Jewish boys in New York. Josef Kavalier makes an impossible escape from Prague in 1939, leaving his whole family
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
American writer and visual artist Audrey Niffenegger talks about her bestselling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife - a magical love story with a twist.Funny, quirky, and occasionally heartbreaking, this is the story of a relationship lived in the moment – even if those moments are all in the wrong order.Clare and Henry met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when she was twe
Pilar Quintana: The Bitch
Colombian writer Pilar Quintana talks about her acclaimed novel The Bitch which explores themes of motherhood, loss, and the impact of violence on women's lives. Set against the backdrop of the Pacific coast, the story revolves around Damaris, a young woman longing for a child but unable to conceive. When she discovers a pregnant dog near her home, she becomes obsessed with the idea of adopting on
Sofi Oksanen: Purge
Bestselling author Sofi Oksanen answers readers' questions about her novel Purge. It's a harrowing story of sexual violence, betrayal and retribution which charts the troubled history of Estonia during and after the Second World War. Told through the lives of two women, the story starts when a frightened stranger, Zara, arrives on Aliide's doorstep. Gradually, their parallel stories, and connected
Judith Kerr: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
On the centenary of her birth another chance to hear much-loved author Judith Kerr discussing her memorable young adults' novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit with Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world.Set during the Second World War, this semi-autobiographical novel traces the story of a young Jewish girl and her family who flee Berlin just as the Nazis come to power. The journey of a fami
Curtis Sittenfeld: Prep
Best-selling American author Curtis Sittenfeld discusses her acclaimed debut novel, Prep. Set in an exclusive boarding school in north-eastern America, Prep is an insightful, caustic and funny coming-of-age story and a savage dissection of class, race, and gender.Clever, aspirational Lee Fiora is fourteen years old when her father drops her at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts that she
Paul Theroux: Deep South
Presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to acclaimed American author Paul Theroux about his bestselling travel book Deep South. After fifty years crossing the globe, seeking adventure and stories to tell about places far from home, Theroux travels deep into the heart of his native country and discovers a land as profoundly foreign as anything he has previously experienced abro
World Book Cafe: Paris
World Book Café travels to Paris to meet some of the French capital’s newest writers. Authors Mahir Guven, Blandine Rinkel, Laurent Petitmangin and Capucine Delattre discuss taking on the literary establishment and finding new ways to express themselves. Like many places in the world, questions of equality, diversity and freedom of expression are top of the agenda in France. But it is complicated;
Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales
This month World Book Club visits Paris, France to be guests of the iconic bookshop on the Left Bank of the River Seine, Shakespeare & Co. There Harriett Gilbert and a bookshop audience talk to acclaimed French writer Marie Darrieussecq about her extraordinary novel Pig Tales.Pig Tales is the story of a young woman who works at a shady Parisian massage parlour, becoming a favourite with her lu
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: Waking Lions
Driving too fast through Israel’s Negev desert in his SUV after a long day in the hospital, Dr Eitan Green accidentally hits a lone Eritrean man on the empty moonlit road, killing him instantly.Panic stricken he drives off instead of calling for help and confessing what he’s done. A decision that will change the course of his life irrevocably because the dead man’s wife, the elegant, enigmatic Sik
Anuk Arudpragasam: A Passage North
A Passage North explores the impact of the vicious Sri Lankan civil war between Tamil and Sinhalese which tore Sri Lanka apart for two and a half decades before a fragile ceasefire was finally reached in 2009. When Krishan learns that his grandmother’s former carer Rani has died he makes the long journey north to attend the funeral across a country still traumatised and scarred by its recent past.
Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways
World Book Club travels to The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in England, as guests of The Off the Shelf Festival and talks to local prize-winning Sheffield writer Sunjeev Sahota about his compelling novel, The Year of the Runaways.Voyaging from India to England, from childhood to the present day, Sunjeev Sahota's heart-rending novel follows a group of young men each in flight from India and despe
Tahmima Anam: A Golden Age
This month as World Book Club continues its year-long season celebrating the Exuberance of Youth it also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the programme.To mark this happy occasion World Book Club are guests of the London Literature Festival at the South Bank Centre on the River Thames and Harriett Gilbert talks to Bangladeshi-born British novelist Tahmima Anam about her enthralling novel, A Gold
Brit Bennett: The Vanishing Half
This month, in the next in our season celebrating The Exuberance of Youth, we talk to American writer Brit Bennett about her unputdownable novel, The Vanishing Half.The Vanishing Half charts the rollercoaster parallel lives of estranged twin sisters who choose to live in two very different worlds - one black and one white.Stella and Desiree are identical twins, growing up together in a small, Sou
Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station
Next in the series exploring The Exuberance of Youth World Book Club talks to the award-winning American author Ben Lerner about his beguiling debut novel Leaving the Atocha Station.Brilliant, unreliable, young American poet Adam Gordon is on a fellowship in Madrid, where he is struggling to establish his identity and dazzle his contemporaries.Instead of studying, his research becomes a meditation
Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing
In this year-long celebration of The Exuberance of Youth, World Book Club revisits the multi-prize-winning debut novel Homegoing by the acclaimed Ghanaian author Yaa Gyasi.The story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a white slave-trader, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them throu
Mohsin Hamid: Exit West
In the season celebrating The Exuberance of Youth, World Book Club talks to Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid about his compelling novel, Exit West.Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Exit West features Nadia and Saeed, two ordinary young people, attempting to fall in love in a world turned upside down. Civil war is driving them from their homeland and they join the great outpouring of people fleeing
World Book Cafe: Brooklyn
World Book Café, the programme where writers reveal the secrets of their home cities, goes to Brooklyn.In a lively and engaging conversation from the heart of the neighbourhood, Asian American authors will share insights into their creative lives, the obstacles they face and the joy they find in words and writing.Presenter Michelle Fleury will be joined on stage by Brooklyn-based writers Elaine Hs
Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan answers audience questions about her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. It is a dazzling, exciting book, which plays with form and storytelling traditions. Goon Squad is made up of connected short stories circling around musician and record executive Bennie Salazar, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. It explores their pasts and catapult
Bryan Washington: Memorial
This month, in the next in our season celebrating The Exuberance of Youth, Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to award-winning American writer Bryan Washington about his moving novel Memorial.Benson, a Black day-care teacher and Mike, a Japanese-American chef, live together in Houston, but are beginning to wonder why they're a couple. When Mike flies off to visit his seriously ill,
NoViolet Bulawayo: We Need New Names
In the latest in World Book Club's season celebrating The Exuberance of Youth, Harriett Gilbert talks to Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo about her extraordinary novel, We Need New Names. A remarkable literary debut shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize We Need New Names is the unflinching, compelling story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and into America. A coming-of-age story, we fol
Kiley Reid: Such a Fun Age
A remarkable debut from an exhilarating young new voice, Such a Fun Age is a big-hearted page-turner of a story about race and privilege, centring on a young black babysitter, her well-meaning employer, and a chance encounter that threatens to undo them both.(Picture: Kiley Reid. Photo credit: David Goddard.)
Isabel Allende: Eva Luna
In the second in our season celebrating The Exuberance of Youth in this centenary year of the BBC, Harriett Gilbert talks to world-famous Chilean writer Isabel Allende about her extraordinary novel, Eva Luna.Eva Luna is the story of an orphan who beguiles the world with her remarkable visions, triumphing over the worst of adversities and bringing light, as her name would suggest, to a dark place.A
Naoise Dolan: Exciting Times
The first of our season of celebrating The Exuberance of Youth in this the centenary year of the BBC, World Book Club talks to Irish writer Naoise Dolan about her dazzling novel Exciting Times. Psychologically astute and dryly funny, Exciting Times is a modern, intelligent dissection of youth, power and privilege set amongst the international circles of contemporary Hong Kong. Clever, young millen
Monique Roffey: The Mermaid of Black Conch
Harriett Gilbert talks to the multi-award-winning Trinidadian-British author Monique Roffey about her enchanting novel The Mermaid of Black Conch, which won the 2020 Costa Book of the Year. Roffey spins the mesmerising tale of a cursed mermaid and the lonely fisherman who falls in love with her.When American bounty-hunters capture Aycayia from the deep seas off the island of Black Conch, David res
Burhan Sönmez: Istanbul, Istanbul
Continuing our month-long season to celebrate the English PEN centenary, World Book Club talks to multi-award-winning Turkish-Kurdish writer and activist Burhan Sönmez about his unforgettable novel Istanbul, Istanbul.At once powerfully political and intensely personal, Istanbul, Istanbul is the story of four prisoners kept in underground cells beneath the city, who tell one another stories about t
Wole Soyinka
This month, to kick off a mini-season to celebrate a very special centenary World Book Club talks, for a second time, to the Nobel Prize-winning giant of world literature, Professor Wole Soyinka, about one hundred years of the writers’ organisation English PEN. PEN is the influential pressure group which helps support and campaign for the release of writers held unlawfully in jail around the globe
Maylis De Kerangal: Mend the Living
World Book Club this month talks to the award-winning French writer Maylis de Kerangal about her remarkable and haunting novel Mend the Living.After a horrific car accident on the Normandy coast surfer Simon Limbeau is rushed to hospital where his devastated parents are later told that he is on life-support, but is brain-dead. His heart, however, is still beating perfectly and could be donated to
Crime and Punishment: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To mark the bicentenary of the birth of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky World Book Club revisits Crime and Punishment in an edition recorded at the elegant Pushkin House, London’s Russian cultural hub, in 2016.To help us explore Dostoyevsky’s haunting classic thriller Harriett Gilbert was joined by acclaimed Russian writer Boris Akunin and Russian scholar Dr Sarah Young.Consumed by the
Jane Harper: The Dry
World Book Club this month talks to the world-renowned Australian author Jane Harper at her home in Melbourne, Australia, about her internationally garlanded thriller, The Dry.Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, tensions in a small town community become unbearable when the Hadler family are found brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler’s guilty, committing suicide after
Manu Joseph: Serious Men
Serious Men tells the intertwined stories of wily Ayyan Mani - who tries to pass off his son as a mathematical genius - and life at the Institute of Theory and Research in Mumbai, where Ayyan works, and where veteran scientists battle over their pet theories about how life began on Earth.Serious Men won the Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010 and the 2011 PEN Open Book Award and was shortlisted for t
Louise Penny: Still Life
This month World Book Club talks to acclaimed Canadian writer Louise Penny about the very first in her astonishingly successful series of Inspector Gamache crime novels.When a much-loved inhabitant of the village of Three Pines in the Eastern Townships of Quebec is found dead in the woods during Thanksgiving, the locals are certain that it was just a tragic hunting accident.But Chief Inspector Arm
Robert Seethaler: A Whole Life
Spanning much of the twentieth century and told with an elegant simplicity which belies the harshness of the tale it tells, Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life is the story of one man's relationship with an ancient landscape.Andreas Egger knows every nook and cranny of the Alpine mountain valley that is his home and from which vantage point he witnesses the arrival of the modern world, in all its many
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions
A modern classic in the African literary canon and voted in the Top Ten of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, Nervous Conditions is the coming-of-age story of two Shona girls, Tambudzai and Nyasha, both trying to find their place in contemporary Zimbabwe. Whilst Nyasha has been to England and questions the effect of that Westernisation on her family, Tambudzai is from a more traditional
Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island
This month World Book Club discusses Bill Bryson’s hugely acclaimed travelogue Notes from a Small Island with the author and his readers around the world.
After two decades as a resident of the United Kingdom, Bryson took what he thought might be a last affectionate trip around his adoptive country before returning to live in his native America. Notes from a Small Island is the irreverent and hi
Sjón - Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
On this month’s World Book Club, Icelandic literary superstar Sjón will be answering questions from readers around the world about his novel Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was.Set in Reykjavik in 1918, it’s the story of sixteen year old Mani, whose life is completely changed by the arrival of the Spanish flu in the city.It’s a fascinating novel about human resilience and connections, a love letter
