World Book Club

Kate Mosse: Labyrinth Nov 01, 2024

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 a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the Grail. While 700 years later, archaeologist Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees and sets out to investigate their origin.

Elif Batuman Oct 01, 2024

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 infatuated with Ivan, an older Hungarian mathematics student, and their relationship unfolds primarily through a series of cryptic emails, highlighting the difficulties of virtual communication across cultures. As Selin travels to Europe for a summer teaching job, she continues to struggle with her sense of self, her obsession with Ivan, and the meaning of her experiences. The novel captures the disorienting, often absurd nature of early adulthood, where intellectual exploration meets the messiness of real life and its chaotic emotions. Infused with dry humour and philosophical musings, The Idiot is at heart a playful meditation on the limitation of language, and the gap between theoretical knowledge and lived experience.

Ewald Arenz: Tasting Sunlight Sep 01, 2024

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 Aug 04, 2024

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… (Recorded in 2020)

Paul Auster: New York Trilogy Aug 01, 2024

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 New York City his own. Each interconnected tale exploits the elements of standard detective fiction to achieve an entirely new genre that was ground-breaking when it was published four decades ago.

In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of identity and what it means to be human.

Hear what readers made of Paul and his novel and what happened when another Paul Auster stood up to introduce himself to the Paul Auster on the stage – a very New York Trilogy occurrence.

Presenter: Harriett Gilbert Producer: Allegra McIlroy

(Photo: Paul Auster interview with Stephen Sackur in New York, 2021)

Edna O'Brien: The Country Girls Jul 31, 2024

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 Jones

Image: Edna O'Brien, pictured in 2009 at the Hay Festival (Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)

World Book Cafe: Toronto Jul 13, 2024

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 generations and backgrounds; Catherine Hernandez, Adrianna Chartrand, Don Gillmor and Deepa Rajagopalan who all join him in front of a lively audience at The House of Anansi Bookshop.

Kevin Kwan: Crazy Rich Asians Jul 06, 2024

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 dysfunctional super-elites, this ironic and funny rom-com makes a perfect escapist summer read.

(Photo: Kevin Kwan is seen in midtown on 24 August, 2023, New York City. Credit: Raymond Hall/Getty Images)

Miriam Toews: Women Talking Jun 01, 2024

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 life events on a Mennonite settlement in Bolivia between 2005 and 2009.

Miriam Toews talks to World Book Club readers in Toronto and around the world about her unique and powerful story about the power of language and solidarity.

(Photo: Miriam Toews, Canadian author at the Hay Festival, 4 June, 2022 in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)

Percival Everett: The Trees May 04, 2024

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 Apr 01, 2024

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 Mar 01, 2024

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 Patchett. Photo credit: Emily Dorio.)

Madrid Feb 10, 2024

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 Feb 01, 2024

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 theory of relativity to quantum mechanics and the nature of time, Rovelli presents complex concepts with remarkable clarity, making them accessible to a wide audience.

Throughout the book, Rovelli weaves together the history of scientific discovery with his own personal reflections, creating a narrative that is both poetic and thought-provoking. Delving into the mysteries of the universe and examining our own place in the cosmos Rovelli invites readers to ponder the profound questions that physics raises about the nature of space, time, and existence itself.

(Photo: Carlo Rovelli. Credit: Christopher Wahl.)

Antonio Muñoz Molina: In the Night of Time Jan 01, 2024

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 Muñoz Molina. Credit: Elena Blanco)

Shehan Karunatilaka: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Dec 01, 2023

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 squads and terrorist bombs, the list of suspects is long. He has 'seven moons' a week, to make contact with and steer his two closest friends to the evidence stash that could uncover the culprit and change the course of his country's destiny.

Navigating the afterlife with a mix of sardonic wit and streetwise sensibility Maali roams war-torn Columbo confronting the ghosts and murderers who haunt Sri Lanka, in a country where the past is never really dead.

(Photo: Shehan Karunatilaka. Credit: Dominic Sansoni)

AS Byatt - Possession Nov 17, 2023

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 Nov 03, 2023

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 she struggles through the challenges of nouns and verbs and the oddities of English speech, she meets and falls in love with an older English man. When he invites her to ‘be my guest’ she brings round her suitcase and moves into his house.

Written in broken English that subtly improves throughout the novel, with perfectly funny insights into English cultural quirks and her own Chinese background, this is a romantic comedy about two people who neither speak one another’s language nor understand one another’s culture.

(Photo: Xiaolu Guo. Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)

Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Oct 02, 2023

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 behind but convinced he’s going to find a way to get them out too. He arrives in New York to stay with his cousin Sammy Klayman, and together the boys cook up a superhero to rival Superman – both banking on their comic book creation, The Escapist, to transform their lives and those around them, which in part he does. Their first cover depicts The Escapist punching Hitler in the face, and they wage war on him in their pages, but the personal impact of WWII is painfully inevitable.

The novel touches on the personal scars left by vast political upheaval, and the damaging constraints of being unable to love freely and live a true and authentic life. Chabon’s prose is perfectly crafted – sometimes lyrical, sometimes intensely witty, and occasionally painfully heartbreaking.

(Picture: Michael Chabon. Photo credit: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images.)

Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife Sep 01, 2023

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 twenty-two and he was thirty. Because Henry is a time traveller. He suffers from a rare genetic condition that means he can be pulled forwards or backwards through time at any moment, without his control.

Against this backdrop, Clare and Henry build a deep and passionate relationship that spans Clare’s whole life and most of Henry’s – all while trying to live a normal life. But unlike most couples, they know how it will end from very early on. Audrey Niffenegger explores the depths of love and trust and inevitable grief and loss through her unusual and moving novel.

(Picture: Audrey Niffenegger. Photo credit: Dennis Hearne, courtesy MacAdam/Cage.)

Pilar Quintana: The Bitch Aug 01, 2023

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 one of its puppies.

However, her evolving relationship with the puppy becomes entangled with the violence of the society around her, revealing dark secrets and triggering a journey of self-discovery.

Through Quintana's lyrical prose, the novel delves deep into the complexities of human relationships, motherhood in particular, the scars left by conflict, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

(Photo: Author Pilar Quintana. Credit: Danilo Costa)

Sofi Oksanen: Purge Jul 01, 2023

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 histories are uncovered. This powerful novel has been translated into 38 languages.

(Picture: Author Sofi Oksanen. Photo credit: Toni Härkönen.)

Judith Kerr: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Jun 05, 2023

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 family splintered by conflict, driven by fear and eventually rewarded with reunion is seen through the eyes of the nine-year-old Anna.

Judith Kerr’s novel, by turns heart-lifting and heart-rending has stood the test of time and continues to be enjoyed by readers of all ages to this day.

(Picture: Judith Kerr. Credit: Eliz Huseyin)

Curtis Sittenfeld: Prep May 05, 2023

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 has won a scholarship to. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, she becomes a shrewd observer of, and ultimately a participant in, their snobby culture and rituals.

She forms intense friendships with other girls; complicated relationships with teachers and an all-consuming infatuation with a boy from the cool crowd, all of which leads to conflicts with her parents back home in the mid-West, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant.

Other novels about boarding schools mentioned in this programme include Make your Home among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet, Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James and Black Ice by Lorene Cary.

(Photo: Curtis Sittenfeld. Credit: Jenn Ackerman)

Paul Theroux: Deep South Apr 01, 2023

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 abroad. He finds in the deep south a place of contradiction, full of unforgettable characters, landscapes, music, and sense of community, but also some of the nation’s worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates.

On four road trips across four seasons, wending along rural highways, Theroux visits small-town churches and gun shows, meets mayors and social workers, writers and reverends. The spectre of racism and the history slavery is never far away, but more often than not Theroux is met with the warmest of welcomes and a willingness to engage in deep and wide-ranging conversations.

(Picture: Paul Theroux. Photo credit: Steve McCurry.)

World Book Cafe: Paris Mar 18, 2023

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; the ideal of universalism - meaning every citizen is considered to be the same regardless of class or ethnicity - is at the heart of the French republic. Does this 'universalism' leave space for the 21st Century desire to celebrate difference, and how can writing help reconcile these complex ideas?

Image: The skyline of Paris, 9 December 2022 (Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales Mar 04, 2023

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 lustful clients until, that is, she slowly and alarmingly metamorphoses into a pig.

A dark feminist fable of political and sexual corruption, and a grim warning of what can happen in a society without a soul, Pig Tales scandalised its readers when it first came out and became the most popular first novel published in decades.

(Picture: Marie Darrieussecq. Photo credit: Charles Freger.)

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: Waking Lions Feb 04, 2023

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 Sikrit, knows what happened. In atonement for his crime Sikrit insists the doctor start treating Eritrean refugees after his hospital dayshifts at clandestine makeshift hospitals in the desert.

A nail-biting and morally devastating drama of guilt, racism, shame and desire which stares unflinchingly at the darkness inside us all, and asks the reader: what would you have done?

(Picture: Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. Photo credit: Alon Siga.)

Anuk Arudpragasam: A Passage North Jan 07, 2023

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.

Written with precision and grace, A Passage North is a poignant memorial for the missing and the dead, and an unsettling meditation on what it means to have observed the war from afar rather than to have been personally caught up in its horrors.

(Picture: Anuk Arudpragasam. Photo credit: Ruvin De Silva.)

Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways Dec 03, 2022

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 desperately searching for a new and fulfilling life in the northern British town of Sheffield. Tarlochan is silent about his past in Bihar, and Avtar has a secret that binds him to protect the traumatized Randeep. Randeep has a visa wife living separately in a flat nearby, who constantly dreads a surprise call from the immigration authorities.

An unforgettable story of dignity in the face of adversity and of the enduring power of the human spirit.

(Picture: Sunjeev Sahota. Photo credit: Simon Revill.)

Tahmima Anam: A Golden Age Nov 05, 2022

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 Golden Age.

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, A Golden Age is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith and unexpected heroism in the middle of chaos. Set against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence we follow Rehana, a mother struggling to protect her children as the civil war intensifies. Wanting only to keep them safe she finds herself facing a heartbreaking dilemma in a war that will eventually see the birth of Bangladesh.

(Picture: Tahmima Anam. Photo credit: Abeer Y Hoque.)

Brit Bennett: The Vanishing Half Oct 01, 2022

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, Southern black community. Until, at age sixteen, they run away. Decades later, still separated by many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple stories and generations of one family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Bennett has produced both a riveting, emotional family drama and an unforgettable exploration of the American history of passing as White.

(Picture: Brit Bennett. Photo credit: Emma Trim.)

Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station Sep 03, 2022

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 on authenticity - are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain, especially the two clever and beautiful women he falls for, as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? In the aftermath of the 2004 Madrid train bombings has he participated in history or merely watch it pass him by?

Winner of the Believer Book Award and a Guardian Book of the Year from 2012 which marked the launch a major new literary talent.

(Picture: Ben Lerner. Photo credit: Catherine Barnett.)

Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing Aug 06, 2022

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 through two continents and three hundred years of history. A novel of remarkable sweep and power, with each character’s life indelibly drawn, Homegoing reveals the devastating legacy of slavery and the resilience of the human spirit.

(Picture: Yaa Gyasi. Photo credit: Peter Hurley/Vilcek Foundation.)

Mohsin Hamid: Exit West Jul 02, 2022

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 a collapsing city, hoping against hope, to find their place in the world. Then something extraordinary happens: doors start appearing, all over the world. They lead to other cities, other countries, other lives. But once you leave there’s no coming back. Readers from around the world put their questions to Mohsin Hamid about this dazzling book.

(Picture: Mohsin Hamid. Photo credit: Jillian Edelstein.)

World Book Cafe: Brooklyn Jun 18, 2022

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 Hsieh Chou, Crystal Hana Kim, Matthew Ortile, Pitchaya Sudbanthad and Jen Lue.

Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad Jun 04, 2022

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 catapults them into the future using a rich variety of voices and narrative styles. This special edition of World Book Club, presented by Katherine Lanpher, was recorded at Brooklyn Central Library.

(Photo: Jennifer Egan. Credit: Pieter M. Van Hattem)

Bryan Washington: Memorial May 07, 2022

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, estranged father in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother arrives for a visit, Benson is stuck looking after his boyfriend’s mother, in a very unconventional domestic set-up. As both men cope with their difficult circumstances they undergo life-changing transformations, learning more about love, anger, and grief than they had bargained for along the way.

Poignant and profound, Memorial is about family in all its strange forms, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the outer limits of love.

(Picture: Bryan Washington. Photo credit: Louis Do.)

NoViolet Bulawayo: We Need New Names Apr 02, 2022

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 follow a young girl named Darling, first as a 10-year-old in Zimbabwe with her friends, navigating a vibrant world of colour, political chaos and ultimately lethal danger. Later as a teenager emigrating to the Midwest United States, she hopes to find a better future living with her Aunt Fostalina in Michigan, only to discover that her options as a young immigrant are perilously few.

(Picture: NoViolet Bulawayo. Photo credit: Nye Lyn Tho.)

Kiley Reid: Such a Fun Age Mar 05, 2022

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 Feb 08, 2022

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.

As Eva comes of age and tells her tale, Isabel Allende conjures up a whole complex, unidentified, South American nation— filled with a cast of unforgettable characters, rich, poor, simple, sophisticated, oppressors and oppressed. Against this turbulent background, love, politics and tragedy all play their part in Eva’s life and help shape her into the unforgettable revolutionary and storyteller she becomes.

A novel that celebrates the power of imagination to create a better world.

(Picture: Isabel Allende. Photo credit: Lori Barra.)

Naoise Dolan: Exciting Times Jan 01, 2022

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 millennial Ava, an Irish graduate teaching English, is having an affair with rich cynical banker Julian. Then she meets Edith. Earnest, attentive and all the things Julian isn’t. A raw, intimate exploration of love and sexuality amongst millennials, Exciting Times charts the often transactional nature of relationships in our complicated modern world.

(Photo courtesy of Naoise Dolan.)

Monique Roffey: The Mermaid of Black Conch Dec 04, 2021

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 rescues her and vows to win her trust. With Aycayia in hiding, their love grows as they navigate both the joys and dangers of life on shore. But on an island whose history reaches back to darker times nothing is straightforward as old jealousies and ancient grudges surface amongst the inhabitants.

(Photo: Monique Roffey.. Credit: Marcus Bastel.)

Burhan Sönmez: Istanbul, Istanbul Nov 06, 2021

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 their city to pass the time. There are two Istanbuls, one below ground and one above, yet in reality both are one and the same.

Sonmez worked as a lawyer in Istanbul and was a member of IHD, the Human Rights Society, and a founder of BirGün, a daily opposition newspaper. He was seriously injured following an assault by police in 1996 in Turkey and received treatment in Britain afterwards.

Here he discusses his novel, censorship and the tense political situation in Turkey, and the invaluable impact of English PEN and other such pressure groups with presenter Ritula Shah and readers from around the globe.

Istanbul, Istanbul was translated by Ümit Hussein.

(Picture: Burhan Sönmez. Photo credit: Roberto Gandola.)

Wole Soyinka Oct 05, 2021

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 and which helped to secure Soyinka’s release in 1969, after 26 months of detention without trial by the military regime in Nigeria.

Guest presenter Ritula Shah also discusses Wole Soyinka’s first new novel in half a century with the author and his readers around the world: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a bitingly witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria’s ruling elite, and a powerful call to arms from one of the country’s most relentless political activists and world-famous writer.

(Picture: Wole Soyinka. Photo credit: Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images.)

Maylis De Kerangal: Mend the Living Sep 04, 2021

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 save someone’s life. They are faced with an agonising choice.

Mend the Living is the story of Simon Limbeau’s heart – and the story of all the lives that are turned upside down in the 24 hours between the accident that cuts short his life and offers hope of new life to another.

(Picture: Maylis de Kerangal. Photo credit: Philippe Quaisse.)

Crime and Punishment: Fyodor Dostoyevsky Aug 09, 2021

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 idea of his own special destiny, Rashkolnikov is drawn to commit a terrible crime. In the aftermath, he is dogged by madness, guilt and a calculating detective, and a feverish cat-and-mouse game unfolds.

(Photo credit: Alexander Aksakov/Getty Images.)

Jane Harper: The Dry Jul 07, 2021

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 slaughtering his wife and son.

But policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his best friend and is reluctantly drawn into the investigation. As he probes deeper into the killings, secrets from the past bubble to the surface and he questions the truth of his friend's crime.

A chilling story set under a sweltering sun dealing with issues of climate change, alcoholism and a community on the brink of breaking down.

(Picture: Jane Harper. Photo credit: Katsnapp Photography.)

Manu Joseph: Serious Men Jun 10, 2021

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 the Man Asian Literary Prize. It’s an unsettling comedy about inequalities in Indian society; it’s a portrait of a man doing his best for his family with unorthodox methods and unexpected results, and it’s a look at the romance and frustrations of scientific research.

Manu Joseph is a novelist and columnist.

(Picture: Manu Joseph. Photo credit: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images.)

Louise Penny: Still Life May 01, 2021

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 Armand Gamache from Montreal suspects foul play and won’t rest until he’s rootled out the darkness at the heart of this seemingly peaceable and bucolic community. His always courteous but also insistent sleuthing gradually brings to light the family secrets and long-held grudges seething under its apparently serene surface.

(Picture: Louise Penny. Photo credit: Jean-Francois Berube.)

Robert Seethaler: A Whole Life Apr 03, 2021

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 and daunting forms.

A stark yet tender book about love, loss and endurance, and about finding dignity and beauty in solitude A Whole Life has already touched many thousands of readers with its message of solace and truth.

(Picture: Robert Seethaler. Photo credit: UrbanZintel.)

Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions Mar 08, 2021

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 branch of the family and is awed by her cousin’s seeming sophistication.

Through its exploration of race, class, gender and the nature of friendship, the novel dramatizes the 'nervousness' of the 'postcolonial' condition that vexes us still.

(Picture:Tsitsi Dangarembga. Photo credit: Hannah Mentz.)

Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island Feb 06, 2021

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 hilarious account of this meandering journey through his beloved island nation. From Dover to Downing Street, from Giggleswick to Loch Ness by way of Titsey and Nether Wallop, Bryson rejoices in Britain’s inimitable placenames and much else of more substance besides, his very own State of the Nation address, as it were.

A huge number-one bestseller when it was first published, Notes from a Small Island has become that nation's most loved book about Britain.

(Picture: Bill Bryson. Photo credit: Catherine Williams.)

Sjón - Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was Jan 04, 2021

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 to cinema and a portrait of a place at a very particular moment in its history.

Moonstone won The Icelandic Literary Prize in 2013.

Sjón is one of Iceland’s leading novelists and his work has been translated into 30 languages. He’s also a poet and librettist and was Oscar nominated for his lyrics for the film Dancer In The Dark. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

(Picture: Sjón. Courtesy of Sjón.)

Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing Dec 05, 2020

A novel of breathtaking sweep revealing the devastating impact of slavery through history. This month World Book Club discusses the multi-prize-winning debut novel Homegoing with its acclaimed Ghanaian author Yaa Gyasi and her fans around the world. 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 through two continents and three hundred years of history. A novel of remarkable sweep and power, with each character’s life indelibly drawn, Homegoing reveals the devastating legacy of slavery and the resilience of the human spirit.

(Picture: Yaa Gyasi. Photo credit: Peter Hurley/Vilcek Foundation.)

Yiyun Li: The Vagrants Nov 09, 2020

Life or death choices in a bid to survive the horrors of 1970s Communist China

This month in the penultimate edition of a year celebrating the globe’s greatest women writers World Book Club talks to acclaimed Chinese author Yiyun Li about her harrowing debut novel The Vagrants. Winner of the Guardian First Book Award The Vagrants is based on real events which took place in China in 1979 during the era that ultimately led to the fateful Tiannanmen Square uprising. In the provincial town of Muddy Waters a young woman, Gu Shan, is sentenced to death for her loss of faith in Communism. The citizens stage a protest after her execution and, over the following six weeks, the novel charts the hopes and fears of the leaders of the protest and the pain of Gu Shan’s parents and friends, as everyone in the town is caught up in the remorseless turn of events.

(Picture: Yiyun Li. Photo credit: Roger Turesson.)

Ali Smith: How to Be Both Oct 05, 2020

A fast-moving, passionate, genre-bending work of art that both dazzles and entertains. This month, World Book Club discusses the much garlanded novel How to Be Both with its acclaimed British author Ali Smith and her fans around the world. Still not able to gather together in a studio, presenter Harriett Gilbert and Ali Smith will be talking remotely to international listeners via all manner of means - phonelines, emails, Skype calls, and social media. In this playfully ambitious novel, a 15th-century artist, Francesco del Cossa, travels through time and space to discover a grieving sixteen-year-old girl in contemporary England taking comfort in a painting he (or is it she?) created. Or is it all the other way around? And whose story comes first?

(Picture: Ali Smith. Photo credit: Sarah Wood.)

Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge Sep 07, 2020

This month’s World Book Club is the ninth in our series celebrating the greatest women writers at work across the globe. Harriett Gilbert and listeners from around the world talk to the world-renowned American author Elizabeth Strout at her home in New Brunswick, Maine, in the USA. The novel under discussion is her internationally-garlanded Olive Kitteridge: a novel made up of 13 luminous short stories set in small-town Maine and bound together by one larger-than-life character, the flawed and fascinating Olive Kitteridge. Retired school teacher and long-time wife of the long-suffering Henry, Olive struggles to make sense of the changes in her life and the lives of those around her. Her travails, at once parochial but also universal, make readers laugh, nod in recognition, as well as wince in pain.

(Picture: Elizabeth Strout. Photo credit: Leonard Cendamo.)

Helen Garner: The Spare Room Aug 01, 2020

The Australian writer Helen Garner joins Harriett Gilbert as World Book Club continues its celebration of women writers.

She’ll be talking about her 2008 novel The Spare Room. It’s the story of two women: Nicola, who has cancer, and Helen who looks after her for three challenging weeks. Helen has her doubts about the unconventional clinic where Nicola has sought out treatment, but she nonetheless throws herself into the role of nurse, finding some comfort in the practical demands of the job.

Based on real events, The Spare Room is an unflinching, fierce look at friendship, illness and caring which finds humour in the darkest of places. The book is as spare and as lean as its title, yet manages to encompass big ideas about life and death.

(Image: Helen Garner. Photo credit: Darren James.)

Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other Jul 06, 2020

This month, for the seventh World Book Club edition celebrating International Women writers, Harriett Gilbert is joined by the remarkable British writer Bernardine Evaristo from her home in east London to talk about her Booker-Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other. Although still unable to gather an audience together in a studio, we take questions from listeners from all around the world via phonelines, tweets and emails to once again create a truly global event. Girl, Woman, Other charts the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, mostly black and British, it tells the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and down the ages. A dazzling mixture of history and contemporary story-telling, Girl, Woman, Other crackles with energy and teems with life, offering an unforgettable insight into life in today’s multi-cultural Britain.

(Picture: Bernardine Evaristo. Photo credit: Jennie Scott.)

Deborah Levy - Hot Milk Jun 08, 2020

This month World Book Club talks to acclaimed British author Deborah Levy about her Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel Hot Milk. In this era of coronavirus we are sadly not able to gather together in a studio but we will be talking remotely to international listeners via phonelines, emails, skype calls, social media – you name it! In Levy’s hypnotic tale of female sexuality two women arrive in a village on the Spanish coast. Rose is suffering from a strange illness and her doctors are mystified. Her daughter Sofia has brought her here to find a cure with the celebrated and controversial Dr Gomez.

Through the opposing figures of mother and daughter, Levy explores the strange and beguiling nature of womanhood and desire. Dreamlike and compelling, Hot Milk is a delirious, timeless fable of feminine potency.

Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies May 04, 2020

This month World Book Club marks the recent worldwide publication of The Mirror and The Light by treating you to a repeat of our memorable edition of the programme with the double-Booker prize-winning British writer Hilary Mantel.

Recorded two years ago at the Man Booker 50 Festival at the South Bank Centre, which was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the renowned prize, Hilary Mantel discusses the second volume in her acclaimed series of novels about Thomas Cromwell. Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history and the downfall of Queen Anne Boleyn whom King Henry VIII had battled for seven years to marry.

Join writer Hilary Mantel, presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers at the South Bank Centre and around the globe for a World Book Club for an hour during which the words Corona or Virus are not mentioned even once.

Fatima Bhutto - The Shadow of the Crescent Moon Apr 06, 2020

Long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, Bhutto’s lyrical debut novel unfolds over the course of one morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border. Set during the American invasion of Afghanistan, it chronicles the lives of five young people trying to live and love in a world on fire. On a day seemingly like any other, three brothers meet for breakfast before going their separate ways. Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances.

(Photo: Fatima Bhutto)

Leïla Slimani - Lullaby Mar 08, 2020

French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani joins Harriett Gilbert in the Radio Theatre at the BBC and readers from around the world to talk about her novel Lullaby, the devastating story of a nanny, Louise, who kills two children in her care.

The book – an international bestseller – opens with this horrific crime then travels back in time to discover why an apparently perfect nanny turned into a cold blooded murderer. Through the lives of Louise and her employers, Slimani explores Paris’s economy and society, depicting a city where poverty and wealth live side by side and people know little about one another. The third programme in World Book Club’s year celebrating international women’s writing, this novel raises urgent questions about women’s lives and maternal instincts, and what is expected of them.

(Photo: Leïla Slimani. Photo credit: Catherine Hélie/Editions Gallimard.)

Petina Gappah - The Book of Memory Feb 03, 2020

Harriett Gilbert is joined by Zimbabwean novelist Petina Gappah for this month’s edition of World Book Club, continuing 2020’s celebration of women’s writing.

Petina will be answering questions from readers around the world about her novel The Book Of Memory. It’s narrated by Memory, an albino woman convicted of murdering her wealthy white guardian, who took her away from life in the townships when she was a child. In this testimony, written from her prison cell, Memory looks back over her life and confronts the events that led to this conviction.

(Photo: Petina Gappah. Credit: Marina Cavazza)

Naomi Alderman - The Power Jan 08, 2020

Naomi Alderman talks about her extraordinary novel The Power which imagines that women suddenly develop an electrifying strength, putting them firmly in control - of everything. The new order spreads around the globe, liberating women from enslavement and subjugation but also freeing their darker ambitions. It’s a pacey read, teeming with characters and plot lines. Alderman focusses on Roxy, the teenage daughter of a London crime lord; Tunde a Nigerian journalist chasing the story around the globe, and in America Ali, a young orphan who becomes a spiritual leader and Margot, an ambitious politician who sees the opportunities the new world order offers her.

In this edition of World Book Club, Naomi Alderman talks about the inequalities which inspired her story and her hopes for the future.

(Photo credit: Justine Stoddard.)

Jenny Erpenbeck - Visitation Dec 09, 2019

This month World Book Club is in Germany marking the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with a programme from the St George’s Bookshop in the heart of the capital. We’re speaking with one of the country’s greatest living writers Jenny Erpenbeck about her highly acclaimed novel, Visitation. Visitation’s central character is a beguiling house on the forested banks of a lake in Brandenburg near Berlin, which is inhabited by various occupants, one dislodging the next over the course of a turbulent century of upheaval and calamity. Encompassing the years from the Weimar Republic, through World War II to the subsequent Soviet-led Communist regime, and finally to reunification and its aftermath, Visitation forms a literary mosaic of the horrors of twentieth century German history filtered through the beauty of one house and the landscape it’s rooted in.

(Image: Jenny Erpenbeck. Credit: Katharina Behling.)

David Nicholls - Us Nov 05, 2019

David Nicholls talks about his internationally successful novel Us. Almost three decades after their improbable relationship first blossomed in London biochemist Douglas and his attractive artist wife Connie live seemingly happily enough with their moody 17-year-old son, Albie just outside London. Then Connie drops a bombshell: she thinks she wants a divorce. Devastated but determined to fight to save their marriage, Douglas insists that the family stick to a previously planned Grand Tour of Europe where he secretly hopes to win his wife and son back. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest point of view, Us is the bittersweet but often very funny story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves and learn how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.

(Photo: David Nicholls. Credit: Sophia Spring)

Héctor Abad - Oblivion Oct 07, 2019

The Colombian novelist and journalist Héctor Abad discusses his memoir Oblivion, a heart-breaking tribute to his late father. Héctor Abad Gómez was a medical doctor, professor and human rights campaigner in the city of Medellín, Colombia, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his brutal murder by paramilitaries in 1987. One of the most exquisitely written accounts of profound love between a father and son in modern literature, Oblivion paints a picture of a remarkable man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America’s recent history.

Presented by Harriet Gilbert

Ann Cleeves - Raven Black Sep 09, 2019

British writer Ann Cleeves discusses Raven Black, the haunting first novel in her award-winning Shetland crime series, with presenter Harriett Gilbert, a studio audience and readers around the world. On a remote Scottish island in the Shetland Isles, a teenage girl is found dead in a snow-covered field. Some years ago, another young girl disappeared in mysterious circumstances near to his house, but the body was never found. As Inspector Perez and local police pursue their investigation a veil of suspicion is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.

Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen Aug 05, 2019

Acclaimed Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma talks about his novel The Fishermen. Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, The Fishermen tells the story of four young brothers who defy their authoritarian father to go fishing in a forbidden river on the outskirts of the western Nigerian town where they live. After a local madman issues a shocking prophecy that the oldest brother will be killed by one of the others, the strong family bonds begin to break down and a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions is set in train. With this bold and powerful debut, Chigozie Obioma has emerged as one of the most original new voices of modern African literature.

Andrea Levy - Small Island Jul 01, 2019

Acclaimed British writer Andrea Levy was only 62 when she died earlier this year. This month another chance to hear this hugely popular author talking about her multi-prize-winning novel Small Island.

A thought-provoking tale of love, friendship and immigration set in London in 1948, Small Island focuses on the diaspora of Jamaican immigrants, through a group of unforgettable characters, who, escaping economic hardship on their own 'small island,' move to England. Once in the Mother Country, however, for which the men had fought and died for during World War II, their reception is not quite the warm embrace that they had hoped for.

(Image: Andrea Levy. Photo credit: Schiffer-Fuchs/ullstein bild/Getty Images)

Siri Hustvedt - What I Loved Jun 03, 2019

This month World Book Club talks to award-winning writer Siri Hustvedt about her novel What I Loved, a troubling, often turbulent tale of love, art, friendship and heartbreak set amidst the darkly flamboyant New York art scene of the late twentieth century.

Scholars Leo and his wife Erica admire, then befriend, artist Bill and his first and second wives. Their respective sons Matthew and Mark grow up together until the first in a series of tragedies strikes; a calamity which devastates the whole community and changes everyone’s lives forever.

(Image: Siri Hustvedt. Photo credit: Miquel Llop/NurPhoto/Getty Images.)

Donna Leon - Death at La Fenice May 08, 2019

This month World Book Club talks to award-winning American writer Donna Leon about her celebrated novel Death at La Fenice. When legendary German conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room two acts into a performance of La Traviata at Venice’s spectacular opera house, police commissario Guido Brunetti is called in. Despite being used to the corruptions of the city, as labyrinthine as the gorgeously crumbling city itself, Brunetti is shocked at the number of enemies Wellauer has made on his way to the top - but just how many have motive enough for murder? Find out more by tuning in to hear Donna Leon talking to her readers in the studio and around the world about murder and mystery in Venice.

(Image: Donna Leon. Photo credit: Regine Mosimann/Diogenes Verlag/AG Zürich.)

Tessa Hadley - The Past Apr 08, 2019

Highly acclaimed British author Tessa Hadley talks to Harriett Gilbert about her award-winning novel - The Past.

Recorded at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival in the elegant surroundings of The Mathematical Institute, part of the university. Tessa skilfully evokes a brewing storm of lust and envy, the indelible connections of memory and affection, the fierce, nostalgic beauty of the natural world, and the shifting currents of history running beneath the surface of these seemingly steady lives.

Over three long, hot summer weeks, four siblings and their children assemble at their country house for a family reunion, where simmering tensions and secrets come to a head.

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in April 2019.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o - A Grain of Wheat Mar 05, 2019

This month a special edition of BBC World Book Club coming from Nairobi in Kenya. Lawrence Pollard talks to celebrated Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in the company of an enthusiastic audience of readers and students who have gathered in the bustling bookshop of Nairobi University where Ngugi was once a director. We’re discussing Ngũgĩ's landmark novel A Grain of Wheat, set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya’s independence from Britain. In it the tangled narratives of a group of Kenyan villagers interweave to tell an epic story of love tested, friendships betrayed and myths forged, confirming Ngũgĩ's status as a giant of African writing.

JoJo Moyes - Me Before You Feb 04, 2019

This month we’re talking to bestselling British writer JoJo Moyes about her wildly popular novel Me Before You. Lou is a small town girl in need of a job. Will is a successful high-powered city trader who becomes wheelchair bound following an accident and decides he doesn’t want to go on living.

And then Lou is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But Lou is determined to prove that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could have imagined.

(Image: Jojo Moyes. Photo credit: Stine Heilmann.)

Lee Child - Killing Floor Jan 05, 2019

World Book Club talks to one of the world’s leading thriller writers, British-born Lee Child. Killing Floor is the first book in the internationally popular Jack Reacher series and presents the all-action hero for the first time, as the tough ex-military cop of no fixed abode: a righter of wrongs, and not a man to mess with.

Early one morning Reacher jumps off a bus in the middle of nowhere and walks 14 miles down an empty country road. The minute he reaches the town of Margrave he is thrown into jail. As the only stranger in town a local murder is blamed on him, but as nasty secrets leak out, and the body count mounts, one thing is for sure: They picked the wrong guy to take the fall.

Chan Koonchung - The Fat Years Dec 01, 2018

This month's World Book Club once again comes from China's capital Beijing. Lawrence Pollard interviews acclaimed and controversial writer Chan Koonchung about his much debated dystopian novel The Fat Years from a buzzy local bookstore in the city centre, filled with an audience of excited readers ready with their questions for the author.

Chan’s speculative fiction, The Fat Years, has been described as giddily daring. It imagines a time in the near future where China is the world’s dominant power and all Chinese are beamingly happy, all but our heroes who come to realise that a month has gone missing from history. No-one remembers it, no-one cares, so they set out to find it. The Fat Years has never been officially published in mainland China but has quite a reputation. Listen in and find out why.

(Photo credit: Colin McPherson/Corbis/Getty Images.)

Lijia Zhang: Lotus Nov 05, 2018

This month BBC World Book Club comes from Beijing with Lawrence Pollard. The programme is a guest of the Bookworm, three rooms and a roof terrace full of books in Chinese and English, a fixture on the literary scene here for over a decade.

Bestselling Chinese writer Lijia Zhang answers questions about her novel Lotus. Lijia taught herself English while working in a missile factory in a bid to become a writer and a journalist, and she’s written Lotus in English. It’s the story of a young migrant worker from the country who ends up as a prostitute in Shenzen, the economic powerhouse of Southern China. It’s also a deeply researched picture of the people who look up at the economic miracle from beneath and their struggles for dignity, love and a future they can believe in.

(Image: Lijia Zhang. Credit: Will Baker.)

Kate Atkinson: Life After Life Oct 06, 2018

This month on World Book Club award-winning British writer Kate Atkinson discusses her celebrated novel Life After Life. In it Atkinson poses the question: What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born and then dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she?

Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

James Ellroy - American Tabloid Sep 02, 2018

On this month’s World Book Club, as he turns seventy, another chance to hear acclaimed American writer James Ellroy, who over a span of fifteen years worked on a massive fictional chronicle of 1960s America. American Tabloid, the first of the three books, exposes the underbelly of a country on the threshold of Kennedy's golden age, and follows three men close to the tentacles of power in a conspiracy with the Mafia that leads to the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the assassination of JFK in Dallas. Brutally brilliant and profane, the book bursts at the seams with crooked policemen, corrupt politicians, mobsters and hitmen, all driven by a desire for power, money and the settling of old scores.

Image: James Ellroy (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Hilary Mantel: Bring Up the Bodies Aug 05, 2018

This month’s World Book Club broadcasts from the Man Booker 50 Festival at the Southbank Centre, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the renowned prize. In the World Book Club chair is the double-Booker prize-winning British writer Hilary Mantel discussing the second volume in her acclaimed series of novels about Thomas Cromwell. Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history and the downfall of Queen Anne Boleyn whom King Henry VIII had battled for seven years to marry.

Anuradha Roy: An Atlas of Impossible Longing Jul 08, 2018

This month World Book Club talks to internationally celebrated Indian writer Anuradha Roy about her much-loved novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing.

Spanning three generations of an Indian family from the turn of the 20th century to India's partition An Atlas of Impossible Longing traces the intertwining lives of the inhabitants of a vast and isolated house on the outskirts of a small town in Bengal. Centred on sensitive foundling orphan boy Mukunda and the wild and motherless daughter of the house, Bakul, the novel charts the unshakeable but oft-threatened bond that grows between them in a world where they feel abandoned by everyone else. A haunting and compelling story of love, loss, grief and the power of home.

(Picture: Anuradha Roy. Photo credit: fmantovani.)

Amy Bloom: Away Jun 06, 2018

Epic in scope, Away is the captivating story of young Lillian Leyb, whose family is destroyed in a horrific Russian pogrom and who comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When she hears that her daughter might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York's Lower East Side, to Seattle's Jazz District, and up to Alaska, toward Siberia.

A novel encompassing the searing experiences of migration and exile, motherhood and mourning, Away is at once heart-rending, nail-biting and completely unforgettable.

(Photo: Amy Bloom. Photo credit: Elena Seibert)

Sarah Waters: Tipping the Velvet May 14, 2018

This month World Book Club talks to British writer Sarah Waters about her chart-topping novel, Tipping the Velvet.

Celebrating twenty years since its first publication Tipping the Velvet is a bawdy, historical, lesbian romance, following the startling career of Nan King, oyster girl from Whitstable turned music-hall star turned rent boy. Star-struck and infatuated with actress Kitty Butler Nan starts up a double act with her idol both on and off the stage. But when Kitty, hankering after a more conventional life, spurns Nan in favour of marriage to her manager, a devastated Nan is propelled into a series of ever more erotic excursions and ultimately a struggle for survival. (Photo credit: Charlie Hopkinson.)

Celeste Ng: Everything I Never Told You May 14, 2018

Presenter Lawrence Pollard talks to chart-topping Chinese-American writer Celeste Ng and an audience gathered in the local Boston radio Newsfeed Café in the Boston Public Library about her bestselling novel Everything I Never Told You.

In 1970s small-town Ohio Lydia is the favorite child of parents, determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Chinese-American Lee family together is destroyed. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, racism and longing, Everything I Never Told You uncovers the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

(Photo: Celeste Ng. Credit: Kevin Day Photography)

Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Mar 12, 2018

Award-winning Dominican American writer Junot Diaz talks to World Book Club on location in Boston, US, about his wildly popular novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Moving across generations and continents, from the dark and tragic past in the Dominican Republic to struggles and dreams in suburban America the novel chronicles Oscar and his family’s search for love and belonging.

(Photo: Junot Diaz attends the Norman Mailer Center's Fifth Annual Benefit Gala. Credit: Brad Barket/Getty Images)

Jackie Kay: Trumpet Feb 04, 2018

This month World Book Club talks to Scottish poet Laureate Jackie Kay about her award winning novel, Trumpet.

When legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody dies an extraordinary secret is revealed, one that he shared in life only with his beloved wife, Millie. On learning the truth about his father, their adopted son Colman is devastated and becomes easy prey for a tabloid journalist. Besieged by the press and overwhelmed with grief, Millie withdraws to their remote seaside home where she seeks solace in treasured memories of her fiercely private marriage. The reminiscences of those who knew Joss Moody render a complex and moving portrait of two people whose shared life was founded on an intricate lie that preserved their family, and their rare, unconditional love.

(Photo credit: Denise Else.)

Agatha Christie Jan 08, 2018

This month World Book Club comes from the Belgium capital Brussels for an Agatha Christie special.

The programme visits the Bibliotheca Wittockiana to discuss one of the bestselling crime novels of all time: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie in which that shrewdest of detectives Hercule Poirot hunts for a killer aboard one of the world’s most luxurious passenger trains.

To help untangle this fiendish puzzleknot and discuss the enduring popularity of the Queen of Crime are acclaimed crime novelist Sophie Hannah who has brought the renowned sleuth back to life again with her sequels, and James Prichard, great grandson of Agatha herself.

(Picture: Agatha Christie at an event in 1967. Photo credit: BBC.)

Richard Flanagan: Narrow Road to the Deep North Dec 03, 2017

Best-selling Australian writer Richard Flanagan talks about his Booker prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

This unforgettable novel about the cruelty of war and the tenuousness of love and life tells the story of captive Australian soldiers forced into hard labour, working on the Burmese railway during and after World War Two. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943 which builds to a horrific climax as surgeon Dorrigo Evans battles and too often fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs.

(Photo: Writer Richard Flanagan. Credit: Joel Saget)

Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty Nov 05, 2017

Best-selling British writer Alan Hollinghurst talks about his Booker prize-winning novel, The Line of Beauty.

In the summer of 1983 20-year-old graduate Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the glamorous Notting Hill home of ambitious Tory MP Gerald Fedden. Nick’s glittering party and politics filled life is contrasted with the realities of his sexuality and gay life in London of the mid 1980s. Against a backdrop of Thatcherite politics and the emerging Aids crisis of that decade The Line of Beauty explores themes of hypocrisy, homosexuality, madness and privilege.

(Photo: Alan Hollinghurst. Credit: Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images)

Jane Gardam - Old Filth Oct 09, 2017

On this month’s World Book Club British writer Jane Gardam discusses her award-winning novel Old Filth with the studio audience at Broadcasting House and listeners from around the world.

Edward Feathers is a child of the Raj. His earliest memories are of his beloved Amah, a teenage Malay girl whom he is soon torn away from when he is sent back to be educated in pre-war England, so-called Home, where he is boarded out with strangers.

A career as a successful lawyer in Southeast Asia later earns him the nickname Old Filth, FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Yet through it all Feathers has carried the wounds of his emotionally hollow childhood, wounds he now sets out to confront as an elderly widow.

(Photo: Jane Gardam. Credit: Victoria Salman)

Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture Sep 03, 2017

This month World Book Club is celebrating its 15th birthday and has come to where it all began – in September 2002 - The Edinburgh Book Festival, to talk to Irish literary superstar Sebastian Barry about his poignant and much garlanded novel The Secret Scripture. Now in her hundredth year Roseanne McNulty, once the most beautiful girl in County Sligo, has long been locked up in an mental asylum for reasons which gradually become clear as she decides to put down a secret record of her remarkable story.

Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict The Secret Scripture is at once an epic story of love and heart-rending betrayal and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the twentieth century.

(Picture courtesy of The Irish Times.)

Delphine de Vigan - No and Me Aug 06, 2017

With an IQ that’s off-the-scale and a hyper-active mind 13-year-old Lou feels out of place amongst the beautiful, confident teenagers in her class. She finds no comfort at home as her mother is in the throes of a profound depression. Her life changes when she meets No, an older homeless girl, whom she immediately feels an affinity with.

Along with a classmate, Lucas, Lou tries to help No to build a life away from the streets. However, No's emotional scars run deep and she pushes Lou's friendship and trust to the limits.

Both poignant and funny, this haunting novel explores homelessness, friendship, love and loss.

(Photo: Delphine de Vigan. Credit: Delphine Jouandeau)

Tim Winton - Cloudstreet Jul 05, 2017

This month World Book Club is talking to chart-topping Australian writer Tim Winton about his unforgettable novel Cloudstreet.

Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognised as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, Cloudstreet is Tim Winton's sprawling, comic epic about luck and love, fortitude and forgiveness, and the magic of the everyday.

Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families flee their rural homes to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in a suburb of Perth. The Lambs are industrious, united and religious. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords.

Over the next twenty years they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try to make the best of their lives.

(Picture: Tim Winton. Credit: BBC.)

Jeffrey Archer - Kane and Abel Jun 05, 2017

This month World Book Club is in the BBC Radio Theatre and is talking to one of the most popular and widely read British novelists, Jeffrey Archer, about his stunningly successful novel Kane and Abel.

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless Polish immigrant are two ambitious men born on the same day on opposite sides of the world.

Their paths are destined to cross in the ruthless struggle to build a fortune and an empire. Fuelled by their all-consuming hatred for one another, over 60 years and three generations, through war, marriage, fortune, and disaster, Kane and Abel battle for the success and triumph that only one man can have.

(Photo: Jeffrey Archer and Mary Archer attend the press night of Photograph 51, 2015, London. Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Derek Walcott - Omeros May 07, 2017

This month we mark the recent death of the St Lucian poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott with another chance to hear him talk-on-the-programme about his poetic masterpiece, the book-length Omeros.

Following the wanderings of an extraordinary cast of characters from the island of St Lucia, Omeros echoes Homer’s ancient-Greek epic of war and love and deadly rivalry, the Iliad, in order to dramatise the lives, sufferings, displacements and conflicts of the inhabitants of today’s Caribbean.

It also explores the islands’ violent history of colonial wars and slavery.

(Picture: Derek Walcott. Photo credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.)

Robert Harris - Imperium Apr 24, 2017

This month World Book Club visits the Oxford Literary Festival in the elegant surroundings of Worcester College, part of the university and is talking to the hugely popular British author Robert Harris with an audience about the first of his bestselling Roman trilogy, Imperium. The setting is Ancient Rome, a city teeming with ambitious and ruthless men, but none more brilliant than a rising young lawyer Marcus Cicero who decides to gamble all on one of the most dramatic courtroom battles of all time. Scrupulously researched and vividly imagined Imperium brings to life the cutthroat politics and the timeless pursuit of power as one man seeks to attain supreme authority within the state.

(Picture: Robert Harris. Credit: BBC.)

Joël Dicker - The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair Apr 24, 2017

This month World Book Club are once again part of The Hay Literary Festival in Cartagena, Colombia. Harriett Gilbert and a Festival audience talk to the acclaimed Swiss writer Joël Dicker about his gripping and chart-topping novel The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. A famous American writer suddenly finds himself the main suspect in a 30 year-old cold case in his sleepy home town in New England. His former student, a novelist desperate for material, appears as his only saviour. The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair is a fast-paced, tightly plotted, literary thriller, and an ingenious book within a book by a dazzling young writer.

(Picture credit: Valery Wallace Studio.)

Laura Restrepo - Delirium Apr 24, 2017

This month World Book Club are lucky enough to be in the beautiful old city of Cartagena in Colombia as part of the Cartagena Hay Festival of Literature. Harriett Gilbert will be talking to one of Colombia’s most acclaimed writers Laura Restrepo about her haunting novel Delirium and learning something about this stunning country’s troubled recent past.

Returning home after a business trip to discover his beloved wife Agustina has gone mad her kindly husband Aguliar delves back into her shadowy past to try to understand what has happened. Eventually he discovers the key to her madness buried deep in a Colombian story of money, power and corruption.

(Picture Laura Restrepo with Harriett Gilbert. Credit: BBC.)

Karl Ove Knausgaard - A Death in the Family Jan 08, 2017

We talk to the acclaimed Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard about A Death in the Family, volume one of his remarkable series of memoirs My Struggle.

Knausgaard 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 must balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature.

A Death in the Family 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.

(Photo: Karl Ove Knausgaard. Credit: Sam Barker)

Margaret Drabble - The Millstone Nov 29, 2016

This month World Book Club is talking to the acclaimed British writer Margaret Drabble about her remarkable novel The Millstone.

At a time when illegitimacy is taboo, Rosamund Stacey is pregnant after a one-night stand. Despite her independence and academic brilliance, she is naïve and unworldly and the choices before her are daunting. She must adapt to life as a single mother, but in the perfection and helplessness of her baby she finds a depth of feeling she has never known before.

The Millstone conjures a London of the sixties that is not quite yet swinging and where sexual liberation has not quite yet arrived.

(Picture: Margaret Drabble. Photo credit: Ruth Corney.)

Crime and Punishment Nov 08, 2016

Russian writer Dostoyevsky’s haunting classic thriller, Crime and Punishment, is celebrating its 150th birthday this year.

Consumed by the idea of his own special destiny, Rashkolnikov is drawn to commit a terrible crime. In the aftermath, he is dogged by madness, guilt and a calculating detective, and a feverish cat-and-mouse game unfolds.

Speaking on behalf of the novel are acclaimed Russian writer Boris Akunin and Russian scholar Dr Sarah Young who will be discussing this timeless Russian classic with the audience in the room at Pushkin House and around the world.

The three extracts of the book were taken from Oliver Ready’s translation by Penguin Books.

A special edition of World Book Club this month at London’s elegant Pushkin House, the UK capital’s Russian cultural hub.

This month, as part of the BBC’s Love to Read Campaign, presenter Harriett Gilbert is picking her favourite novel to discuss.

(Photo credit: Alexander Aksakov, Getty Images)

Anne Enright - The Gathering Oct 01, 2016

This month World Book Club talks to the acclaimed Irish writer Anne Enright about her poignant Booker Prize-winning novel The Gathering.

In it Veronica, one of the nine surviving Hegarty siblings, is bringing her brother Liam home to Dublin to bury. He walked to his death in the sea in Brighton, his brain muddled by drink, his pockets filled with stones.

As the Hegarty clan gathers to mourn at Liam’s funeral Veronica retraces the troubled history and the murky family secrets that have festered over the years and brought tragedy in their wake. A novel about love, death and the darkness of thwarted desire The Gathering has won admirers the world over.

DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little Sep 16, 2016

Harriett Gilbert talks to the hugely acclaimed writer DBC Pierre about his best-selling first novel Vernon God Little. An absurdly humorous look at the misadventures of a Texas teen named Vernon Little whose best friend has just killed 16 of their classmates and himself. In the wake of the tragedy, the townspeople seek both answers and vengeance; because Vernon was the killer's closest friend, he becomes the focus of their fury.

Hailed by the critics and lauded by readers for its riotous and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

(Photo: DBC Pierre outside BBC Old Broadcasting House)

Juan Gabriel Vasquez - The Sound of Things Falling Jul 02, 2016

We talking to acclaimed Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vasquez about his dark and compelling novel The Sound of Things Falling. Vasquez explores the recent tortured history of his home country through a complex interweaving of personal stories and confronts the disastrous consequences of the war between the drugs cartels and government forces which played out so violently in Colombia’s streets and in the skies above.

After witnessing a friend’s murder, Antonio discovers the many ways in which his own and other lives have been deformed by his country’s recent brutal past. His journey leads him back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change; a time before drug-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.

(Photo: Juan Gabriel Vasquez. Credit: Hermance Triay)

Tan Twan Eng - The Garden of Evening Mists Jun 04, 2016

This month we’re in The Book Lounge Bookshop in Cape Town, South Africa and talking to the Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng about his Man Asian Literary Prize-winning novel, The Garden of Evening Mists.

This haunting tale, set in the jungles of Malaya during and after World War II, centres on Yun Ling, the sole survivor of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in which her sister perished.

Driven by the desire to honour her sister’s memory through the creation of a lush and sensuous garden Yun Ling falls into a relationship with the enigmatic Japanese gardener Aritomo and begins a journey into her past, inextricably linked with the secrets of her troubled country’s history.

(Picture: Tan Twan Eng. Credit: Lloyd Smith.)

Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre May 11, 2016

To celebrate the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth, World Book Club travels back to Victorian England to discuss her captivating and enduring tale, Jane Eyre with writer Tracy Chevalier and biographer Claire Harman in a packed BBC Radio Theatre.

The novel traces the fortunes of a young orphaned girl searching for a sense of belonging and identity in a hostile world, plagued by both gender and social inequality.

Weaving together the sweeping romance between Jane and Mr Rochester, a social commentary on nineteenth century England and set against the eerie Gothic backdrop of imposing mansions and wild moorland, Brontë has produced one of the world’s most loved and timeless tales.

(Photo: Charlotte Bronte. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Nuruddin Farah - Maps Apr 12, 2016

This month, as part of the World Service’s Identity Season, World Book Club is in Cape Town, home of acclaimed Somali writer Nuruddin Farah, where we’ll be talking to him about his novel, Maps.

This moving and dramatic book is the first of three novels which make up Nuruddin Farah’s Blood in the Sun trilogy. Maps traces the journey of a young orphaned boy, Askar, who is taken under the wing of a loving surrogate mother, Misra.

Set in both Somalia and Ethiopia with an ever looming backdrop of conflict and political turmoil, Askar struggles to find and forge his identity in a land ravaged by war. Farah’s lucid exploration of struggle – both internal and external; personal and political – is as profound as it is compelling and draws on his own complex relationship with his native Somalia.

(Picture credit: Jeffrey Wilson.)

Judith Kerr - When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Mar 06, 2016

This month we talk to the much-loved German-born, British author and illustrator Judith Kerr about her classic children’s novel, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

Set during World War Two, 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 family splintered by conflict, driven by fear and eventually rewarded with reunion is seen through the eyes of the nine-year-old Anna. Judith Kerr’s novel, by turns heart-lifting and heart-rending has stood the test of time. Celebrating its 45th anniversary this year it continues to be enjoyed by readers of all ages to this day.

(Picture: Judith Kerr. Credit: Eliz Huseyin)

Cees Nooteboom - The Following Story Feb 04, 2016

This quixotic ‘novel of ideas’ blends philosophical reflection with the haunting tale of Herman Mussert, a retired, outmoded ancient language teacher preoccupied with Classical antiquity. After falling asleep one evening in Amsterdam, he mysteriously wakes the next morning in a hotel room in Lisbon where he slept with another man’s wife twenty years earlier. From here Mussert embarks on an enigmatic journey of the mind, contemplating passion, death, wisdom and disillusionment. Presented by Harriet Gilbert.

Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love Jan 02, 2016

American writer Elizabeth Gilbert talks about her phenomenally successful novel Eat, Pray, Love. On a self-confessed ‘search for everything', Eat, Pray, Love charts the year in which Elizabeth Gilbert, aged 34, left behind her unfulfilling marriage, a volatile fling and life as she knew it, to embark on a spiritual voyage of discovery.

The memoir brings together humour, eccentricity and honesty as the author documents the trials and triumphs of her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia in search of pleasure, peace and personal growth.

With meditations on the culinary delights of Rome, spiritual development in an Indian ashram and passionate lovers in Bali, the enduring appeal of this bestselling memoir has drawn readers from all around the world as the author struggles to break free from the pressures of modern life and to find a deeper meaning and happiness.

(Photo: Elizabeth Gilbert)

Leila Aboulela - Minaret Dec 17, 2015

This month World Book Club talks to Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela about her award-winning novel Minaret.

This poignant and lyrical tale traces the journey of a young woman, Najwa, who is forced to flee her native Khartoum in Sudan, amidst conflict and political turmoil and exchange it for the anonymity of London.

Drawing on her own experience, Leila Aboulela creates a rich and moving narrative, exploring the fault lines between traditional Islamic culture and the modern, cosmopolitan life of Western Europe.

This beautiful, challenging novel traces Najwa’s struggle with bigotry and faith; isolation and love as she attempts to make sense of her new life and surroundings whilst not losing sight of her roots and heritage.

Jonathan Franzen - Freedom Nov 08, 2015

US literary superstar Jonathan Franzen talks about his hugely acclaimed novel Freedom. An epic of contemporary love and marriage, Freedom charts the exploits of the Berglund family, capturing the temptations and burdens of liberty, the thrills of teenage lust, the frustrations of trying to change the world, and the sobering compromises of middle age.

In fixing his unflinching gaze on the memorable trio of characters, Patty, Walter, and reprobate rockstar Richard Katz and on how they struggle to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of 21st Century America.

(Photo: Jonathan Franzen. Credit: Getty Images)

Deborah Moggach - Tulip Fever Oct 03, 2015

This month World Book Club talks about the acclaimed international bestseller Tulip Fever with its British author Deborah Moggach. It's 1630s Amsterdam, and tulip fever has seized its inhabitants. Everywhere men are seduced by the exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort it is his young and beautiful wife Sophie that he desires above all, hoping that she will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy. An heir.

He commissions a talented and dashing young portraitist to immortalise them on canvas, but as the portrait unfolds, so does a passion that breeds a grand deception – and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax.

(Photo: Deborah Moggach) (Credit: BBC)

Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin Sep 05, 2015

Andrey Kurkov discusses his darkly comic novel Death and the Penguin with Harriett Gilbert, and responds to listeners' questions from around the world. The book is set in the grey and deeply surreal world of the former Soviet republic, in which aspiring writer Viktor, who lives with his pet penguin Misha, is asked to write obituaries for Ukrainian VIPs. But the VIPs are still alive - for now. His pride turns to terror as he realises that both he and Misha have been drawn into a trap, from which there seems to be no escape.

The programme is recorded live in his native Ukraine, at the historic Mikhail Bulgakov Museum in Kiev.*

*(Bulgagov was a Kiev-born Russian writer and playwright from the first half of the 20th Century)

(Photo: Andrey Kurkov sitting next to his literary hero, Mikhail Bulgakov, in Kiev. Credit: Daniel Simons)

Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Aug 03, 2015

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is Jeanette Winterson's searing yet ultimately uplifting coming-out, coming-of-age tale, in which a young girl learns to rebel against her fanatical, cult-like upbringing, and set out on her own path in life. To mark thirty years since its publication, here's another chance to hear the memorable World Book Club in which Jeanette Winterson discusses where fact meets fiction - there are distinct parallels to her own life.

Hear how important this ground-breaking novel has been for readers around the globe. British writer Jeanette Winterson is in conversation with Harriett Gilbert. (First broadcast in 2012.)

(Picture: Jeanette Winterson. Photo: Sam Churchill)

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Jul 07, 2015

British author Mark Haddon discusses his astonishingly successful novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Published in 45 languages around the world, it is a murder mystery like no other. Fifteen-year old Christopher knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings, and when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered with a garden fork, he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Mark Haddon answers readers’ questions from places as diverse as Iceland, Egypt and the Philippines, as well as in the studio in London.

(Photo: Mark Haddon. Credit: Nicky Barranger)

Yasmina Khadra - The Swallows of Kabul Jun 07, 2015

The Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra discusses his novel, The Swallows of Kabul - a portrait of life under a tyrannical theocracy. Khadra is actually a man, and took a pseudonym (his wife's!) during his career in the Algerian Army during the civil war. His book follows a group of people struggling to hold on to their humanity in a world where pleasure is a sin and death awaits anyone who breaks the rules. Khadra answers questions from BBC listeners worldwide, in discussion with Harriett Gilbert.

(Photo: Yasmina Khadra. Credit: E.Robert-Espalieu)

Marian Keyes - Rachel's Holiday May 02, 2015

World Book Club talks life, sex, drugs, if not rock ‘n’ roll to chart-topping Irish writer Marian Keyes about her best-selling novel Rachel’s Holiday. She answers BBC listeners' questions from around the world, and also reads several passages from her novel, about feisty 27-year-old Rachel, who is sent to a rehab clinic because of her addiction to drugs. Both funny and moving, Rachel’s Holiday examines the pain of addiction and depression, revealing a darker than usual side to Marian’s writing. The programme is presented by Harriett Gilbert.

(Photo: Marian Keyes. Credit: Barry McCall)

Guenter Grass - The Tin Drum Apr 19, 2015

On Monday, Guenter Grass, German Nobel literature prize-winner and author of The Tin Drum, died aged 87. Before his death he had been described as "the world’s most important living writer".

We look back to 2009 when Guenter invited World Book Club into his home in Germany to put listeners' questions to him about his internationally-celebrated novel The Tin Drum.

Bitter and impassioned, the book charts the rise and fall of Nazism through the mischievous eyes of Oskar Matzerath, a dwarf who decided to stop growing at the age of three. First published half a century ago, The Tin Drum was re-published in new translations all over the world to mark its 50th birthday in 2009.

Image: Guenter Grass. Credit: Reuters

JD Salinger - The Catcher In The Rye Apr 04, 2015

Harriet Gilbert discusses JD Salinger's classic novel The Catcher in the Rye with a studio audience, including questions from BBC World Service listeners as far afield as Nepal and the Czech Republic. She's in New York's Algonquin Hotel, long-time hangout of our reclusive writer, and answers your questions with the help of authors David Gilbert and Joanna Rakoff. JD Salinger wrote the book in 1951, and died in 2010.

(Photo: JD Salinger) (Credit: AP)

Anne Tyler Mar 08, 2015

World Book Club visits the home of the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Anne Tyler, in the city of Baltimore. From her spare, elegant writing room Anne talks to Harriett Gilbert about her own personal favourite novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Abandoned by her salesman husband, fierce, sometimes cruel matriarch, Pearl is left to bring up her three children alone - Cody, a flawed charmer, Ezra, a flawed saint, and Jenny, errant and intense. Now as Pearl lies dying with her children around her, the past is unlocked, each character with their own searing take on it.

William Gibson Feb 01, 2015

This month World Book Club talks to cult American-Canadian writer William Gibson about his much garlanded novel that launched the cyberpunk generation with one of the last century’s most potent visions of the cyberspace future.

The first winner of the science fiction ‘triple crown’ of awards for the genre, Neuromancer conjures a nightmare world of concrete megacities trapped under geodesic domes and run by shadowy megacorps. Washed-up computer hacker Case longs to escape by jacking into the technicolour but terrifying virtual reality of the Matrix, and is glad to be hired by a mysterious employer and his alluring sidekick Molly to pull off the ultimate hack.

Daniel Kehlmann Jan 04, 2015

This month World Book Club talks to bestselling German writer Daniel Kehlmann whose entertaining, and internationally acclaimed novel Measuring the World took the literary world by storm nine years ago.

In it he reimagines the lives of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt and their many groundbreaking ways measuring the world.

Vividly bringing both very different geniuses to life Kehlmann captures their balancing acts between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.

Photo: Daniel Kehlmann. Credit: Sven Paustian.

Marilynne Robinson Dec 07, 2014

Gilead is an epistolary novel that is the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly congregationalist pastor in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa, who knows that he is dying of a heart condition.

An intimate tale of three generations from the Civil War to the 20th Century, Gilead tells a story of fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. In the luminous voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, the novel takes the form of a letter to his young son and is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-driven existence that the Reverend loves passionately – and from which he will soon part.

(Photo: Marilynne Robinson. Credit: Nancy Crampton)

Herman Koch Nov 01, 2014

This month World Book Club talks to bestselling Dutch writer Herman Koch whose hugely controversial and entertaining novel The Dinner took the literary world by storm five years ago. Since then, it has not left the bestseller lists in its native Holland.

The Dinner explores a contemporary moral dilemma when two couples meet in a fashionable restaurant to discuss their children’s involvement in a horrendous crime. How far will a parent go to protect their son? The answer that gradually emerges seems to be very far indeed.

Hear Herman Koch, Harriett Gilbert and readers in the studio in London and around the world discuss The Dinner - and confess what they might have done in similar circumstances!

Kathy Reichs - Deja Dead Oct 04, 2014

World Book Club talks to award-winning American writer and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, about the first in her Temperance Brennan detective series, Deja Dead.

A nerve-jangling thriller that took the literary scene by storm when it was published in 1997, Deja Dead was the most successful crime-fiction debut ever. In it Kathy Reichs launches her intrepid heroine, a fearless forensic anthropologist and wannabe detective, Temperance Brennan. When the remains of a dismembered body of a woman, bagged and discarded, are discovered near an ancient burial ground Brennan suspects the work of a serial killer.

The police disagree, but Brennan sticks to her guns despite, or perhaps because of, her dark forebodings.

Picture: Kathy Reichs, Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg

Pat Barker - Regeneration Sep 06, 2014

This week, as part of the continuing global commemorations of the First World War, World Book Club is in sombre mood with another timely chance to hear multi-award-winning British writer Pat Barker.

She talks about her internationally renowned novel Regeneration, the first in the trilogy of novels which culminated in the Booker Prize winner The Ghost Road.

Also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and now recognised twenty-two years after its publication as a modern war classic, Regeneration is a part historical, part fictional exploration of how the traumas of the so-called Great War brutalised a generation of young men.

Picture: WW1 patients recuperating in hospital in 1918. Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.

Janice Galloway Aug 02, 2014

Harriett Gilbert talks to award-winning writer Janice Galloway about her novel The Trick Is to Keep Breathing. Recorded at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Harriett discusses her novel about a drama teacher, Joy Stone, who is losing her grip on reality as she struggles to cope with the loss of her married lover and her mother.

Through the wit and irony that helped gain her international acclaim, Galloway crafts a picture of modern life and depression. Yet even as she sees her family and friends metamorphose into suspicious characters, Galloway's protagonist and the reader find the trick in living rests with the simplest things.

Photo: Janice Galloway (left) and Harriett Gilbert

Jostein Gaarder Jul 05, 2014

In this edition of World Book Club on BBC World Service, Jostein Gaarder talks to Harriett Gilbert about his novel Sophie’s World at The House of Literature, Oslo.

A chart-topping global surprise bestseller Sophie’s World draws us into the world of the great philosophers through the intriguing character of 14-year-old Sophie and her mysterious teacher. As their relationship develops a story emerges which raises profound questions about the biggest questions of all: where we come from, the origin of the universe and the meaning of life.

The prolific and prize-winning Norwegian writer explains to a room full of his readers how amazed he was by the phenomenal success of the novel and how attached he got to his characters as he created his multi-layered tale.

Per Petterson Jun 07, 2014

This month World Book Club comes to a surprisingly sunny Oslo as part of our mini Norwegian season to talk to one of the country’s most feted novelists Per Petterson, about his phenomenally successful novel Out Stealing Horses.

Per will be answering questions from a rapt audience here in the elegant canteen of his publishers about his poignant, compelling multi-award-winning tale.

Through passages of often achingly beautiful prose Out Stealing Horses explores universal themes of isolation, loss of innocence, paternal love and sexual passion and the unexpected betrayals that can follow in their wake.

Photo: Per Petterson by Tom Martinsen)

Maya Angelou - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings May 31, 2014

Maya Angelou reflects on some of her earliest and most difficult memories and talks about her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in this special commemorative edition of World Book Club from our archive.

Harlan Coben May 03, 2014

This month chart-topping US writer and showman Harlan Coben will be talking to Harriett Gilbert and a studio full of his readers about his page-turner of a thriller, Six Years.

Jake Fisher, a lovelorn professor of political science searches out the girl of his dreams who suddenly dumped him for another man six years ago and begged him not to contact her. When he finds himself entangled with a bunch of ruthless killers and criminals from the underworld Jake knows he should back off but passion for his lost love draws him further into a terrifying web of intrigue and murder.

Hear what Harlan has to say about how he creates such tightly coiled plots and why the sound of an upstairs toilet flushing is the scariest noise you can hear.

Malorie Blackman: Noughts and Crosses Apr 05, 2014

Bestselling British writer Malorie Blackman talks about her page-turning novel for teenagers and young adults Noughts and Crosses.

A gripping modern-day tale of star-crossed lovers which aims to challenge our perceptions of race, power and truth, Noughts and Crosses is set in an alternative world where whites are the oppressed underclass and blacks are all-powerful and, often, all corrupt. An excited audience of all ages gathers to discuss the novel with Malorie Blackman.

Elif Shafak - The Forty Rules of Love Mar 01, 2014

This month we’re talking to one of Turkey’s foremost writers Elif Shafak.

She’s answering your questions about her bestselling novel The Forty Rules of Love, an investigation into love, mysticism and the life of the famed Sufi poet Rumi.

Crossing continents and centuries two parallel love stories unfold and lives are turned upside down: Ella, an unhappily married modern day American housewife falls for a mysterious email correspondent and Rumi, the 13th Century mystic encounters his spiritual mentor, the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz.

Photo: Mychele Daniau/AFP/Getty Images.

Christos Tsiolkas Feb 01, 2014

World Book Club talks to the chronicler of 21st Century urban Australia Christos Tsiolkas. He talks to Harriett Gilbert about his controversial, award-winning novel The Slap which has polarised opinion in his native country and across the globe. In it he presents an apparently minor domestic incident, when a man smacks a badly behaved child, from eight very different perspectives and examines how its aftermath reverberates through the lives and communities of everyone who witnesses it happen.

(Photo: Christos Tsiolkas)

Pat Barker Jan 04, 2014

This month World Book Club is in a reflective mood as we mark the beginning of the centenary commemorations for World War One by inviting multi-award-winning British writer Pat Barker on to the programme.

She'll be talking to us about her internationally renowned novel Regeneration, the first in the trilogy which culminated in the Booker Prize winner The Ghost Road.

Also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and now recognised, twenty-two years after its publication, as a modern war classic, Regeneration is a part-historical, part-fictional exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.

Picture: WW1 patients recuperating in hospital in 1918, Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Brian Aldiss Dec 07, 2013

Prize-winning author Brian Aldiss, the grand old man of British science fiction writing, talks about his 1964 classic sci-fi novel Greybeard.

Set decades after the Earth's population has been sterilised as a result of nuclear bomb tests in space, the world is gradually emptying of humans. The remaining ageing, childless population are left to face the fact that there is no younger generation coming to replace them. Instead, nature is reclaiming the earth and Greybeard and his clan wander this strange new and dangerous land searching out a place of safety to grow ever older in.

(Photo: Brian Aldiss, courtesy of Brian)

Albert Camus - The Outsider Nov 02, 2013

One hundred years after his birth this month’s World Book Club, will be discussing Albert Camus' seminal novel The Outsider with his acclaimed biographer Oliver Todd, and Professor of French at Sheffield University, David Walker. And appropriately the programme comes from the heart of the Left Bank of Paris to hear from them – at the world famous bookshop Shakespeare and Company overlooking Notre Dame. Here an eager audience gathers in the upstairs attic room where aspiring novelists are regularly to be found sleeping off their exertions in quiet alcoves.

As well as questions from the audience in the bookshop and from our wider audience abroad World Book Club also hears from feted writers from around the world explaining why they think this most startling tale of sun, sea, sand and murder is still one of the great classic novels of our age.

To complement this edition of World Book Club you can listen to a BBC drama of The Outsider and also to The Insider, a new play imagining the story of the silent Algerian characters that appear in Camus’ novel.

Picture: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images.

Jhumpa Lahiri Oct 05, 2013

This month a chance to hear Pulitzer Prize winning Indian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, whose new novel The Lowland has just been shortlisted for the British Man Booker Prize.

With presenter Harriett Gilbert and a studio full of readers Lahiri talks about her acclaimed short story collection Unaccustomed Earth, whose eight tales consider the lives of Indian American characters and how they deal with their mixed cultural environment.

Beginning in America, and spilling back over memories and generations to India, the book explores how family life and relationships are affected by the uprootings and resettlings of the Bengali immigrant experience.

Picture: Jhumpa Lahiri. Credit: Marco Delogu.

Neil Gaiman Sep 07, 2013

Harriett Gilbert talks to the bestselling author Neil Gaiman, voted by listeners as the 'most wanted' guest for the programme.

Neil is a British writer, comic book author, a short-story writer, a science fiction and fantasy novelist, now living in the United States. And our chosen book American Gods tells the story of the gods brought by immigrants over the centuries, from Scandinavia, Ireland, Russia, Greece, Egypt, and what happens to them as the years pass and they get forgotten, and surpassed by the modern gods of technology – television, mobile phones and the media.

Join Harriett Gilbert, and an invited audience to hear Neil Gaiman talk about his book American Gods.

Ahdaf Soueif - The Map of Love Aug 03, 2013

At this crucial moment in Egypt’s story, this month’s World Book Club talks to one of the country’s great writers, Ahdaf Soueif, about her internationally acclaimed novel The Map of Love.

In her Booker-shortlisted bestseller Soueif weaves together two poignant stories separated by a century of Egyptian history: a love story between aristocratic English Anna Winterbourne and romantic firebrand Sharif al-Baroudi, is set amidst the brutality of British imperialism and the fierce political battles of the Egyptian Nationalists. This tale reaches across time to an account of their descendants negotiating passions and political unrest in late 20th Century Egypt. We hear how Soueif had originally set out to write a ‘tawdry romance’ but hadn’t managed to stop herself writing something much more meaningful and monumental!

Listen to this great Egyptian voice clearly and compellingly explain exactly what has gone wrong in Egypt, in her eyes, over the last decade.

Amit Chaudhuri Jul 06, 2013

World Book Club’s Harriett Gilbert talks to the acclaimed Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri, in front of a multi-national audience and listeners around the world at the Nehru Centre in London. Chaudhuri will discuss his novel The Immortals, which is about the place of Indian classical music in the modern world.

Set in the heart of the world of the Bombay middle class, it tells the story of three very different classical-musicians whose lives thread in and out of each other in 1970s and 80s Bombay.

The city itself is on a roll -- expanding, growing ever richer and more glittery -- and the novel's main characters are variously jostled by the changes taking place around them. But they're also struggling with such matters as the place of musical tradition in the modern world, and the need to earn a living while pursuing an artistic vocation. Amit Chaudhuri himself is a musician as well as author and he talks about how contemporary Indian classical music is currently in a moribund state, as it takes a great deal of commitment to be successful.

And in a novel filled with strong and lively characters, Amit explains how difficult he finds it to write characters, and how in his work as a teacher of creative writing, he finds characterisation impossible to teach.

Hear him also read three extracts from The Immortals and take calls from listeners in Delhi and Pennsylvania who will bring their own international perspective to the story.

Mohsin Hamid Jun 01, 2013

With the current global release of the film of Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid’s much garlanded novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, another chance to hear the writer talking about his tense and provocative thriller.

Through the eyes of the young, worldly-wise Pakistani, Changez, in conversation with a mysterious American stranger in a café in Lahore, this brief, gripping novel tells of a love affair with America that goes dangerously wrong and tackles the ever more relevant and complex issues of Islamic fundamentalism and America’s ‘war on terror’ with sympathy and balance.

So, go see the film, or better still read the book – and then tune in to World Book Club with Mohsin Hamid and Harriett Gilbert, to see what readers around the world made of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

(Image: Mohsin Hamid, author)

World Book Club: The Great Gatsby May 04, 2013

This month a very special edition of World Book Club coming from New York City in the USA.

We’re partnering up with the acclaimed Leonard Lopate Show’s Book Club on the New York radio station WNYC. In advance of the much anticipated film about to open worldwide we’ve come here to discuss that classic novel of The Roaring Twenties, The Great Gatsby. And who better to talk to about it than chronicler of today’s New York young urban sophisticates, novelist Jay McInerney. He is joined on stage by F Scott Fitzgerald scholar Anne Margaret Daniel and together we discuss the haunting tale of dazzling, doomed Jay Gatsby as told to through the eyes of young Midwesterner Nick Carraway.

Jay McInerney photo by David Howell.

John Grisham - A Time To Kill Apr 06, 2013

This month World Book Club are guests of the American Embassy in London and Harriett Gilbert and a studio audience will be talking to US superstar thriller writer John Grisham. They will be discussing his gripping debut novel A Time To Kill, written almost 30 years ago while Grisham was still a jobbing attorney in Mississippi.

In the novel a black father takes the law into his own hands after worrying that the legal system will fail to adequately punish the two white men who brutally raped and beat his daughter. In a fascinating discussion about racism in the deep south of America hear how John Grisham has wrestled with his own feelings of prejudice, his changing views on the death penalty and how he's stumped for words when told he's beautiful!

(Image: John Grisham. Credit: Bob Krasner)

Romesh Gunesekera - Reef Mar 02, 2013

This month on World Book Club Harriett Gilbert will be talking with one of Sri Lanka’s leading writers, Romesh Gunesekera, about his acclaimed novel Reef.

Reef is the moving, multi award-winning story of young Triton, a talented young chef who goes to work for Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and the island's disappearing reef.

So committed is Triton to pleasing his master’s palate that he is oblivious to the political unrest threatening his Sri Lankan paradise, and yet subtle undercurrents of impending doom do ripple through Triton’s haunting story of memory and friendship.

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas Feb 02, 2013

To mark the release of the acclaimed film of David Mitchell’s masterpiece Cloud Atlas around the world, there’s another chance to catch the multiple prize-winning English author talking about his dazzling novel.

With dramatic use of time-shifts and literary forms, Cloud Atlas circles the globe, reaching from the South Seas of the nineteenth century to a post-apocalyptic future.

Offering an enthralling and often chilling vision of humanity’s will to power and where it will lead us, David Mitchell's deftly crafted novel follows the stories of six people whose lives interlock in subtle and mysterious ways.

So go see the film or even better read the book and listen for another chance to join Harriett Gilbert and writer David Mitchell to hear what readers both in the studio and around the world made of Cloud Atlas.

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice Jan 05, 2013

This month in a very special edition, we’re celebrating that most English of novelists Jane Austen.

It’s two hundred years this month since the publication of Pride and Prejudice and we’ve invited bestselling British novelist and Jane Austen aficionado PD James, along with Anglo-Pakistani writer Moni Mohsin, also a great Austen fan and from Australia Susannah Fullerton, President of the Australian Jane Austen Society, all here to share with us their passion for this much loved classic English novel.

We’ll also be hearing from other writers from around the world – AS Byatt, Colm Toibin, Nii Parkes, Kamila Shamsie, to name a few, why the razor-sharp wit of Elizabeth Bennet and the cool hauteur of the gorgeous Mr Darcy are still drawing in more readers than ever across the globe in the twenty-first century.

Susannah Fullerton is the author of Happily Ever After: Celebrating Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Image: Jane Austen, Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

CK Stead - My Name Was Judas Dec 01, 2012

In this month's World Book Club, Harriett Gilbert talks to one of New Zealand's greatest living writers, CK Stead, about his prize-winning novel My Name Was Judas.

With this playful re-writing of the life and death of Jesus, CK Stead poses some profound and thought-provoking questions on the nature of belief and divinity itself.

Judas's name has become synonymous with 'betrayer', but in this witty, and controversial retelling, some 40 years after the death of Jesus, Judas finally puts forward his story as he remembers it.

Looking back on his childhood and youth from an old age the gospel writers denied him, Judas recalls his friendship with Jesus; their schooling together; the 12 disciples and their stories; their journeys together and their dealings with the powers of Rome and the Jewish clerics.

(Image: CK Stead)

Paul Auster - New York Trilogy Nov 03, 2012

On this month's World Book Club, Harriett Gilbert will be talking to bestselling American writer Paul Auster about his acclaimed work The New York Trilogy.

In three brilliant variations on the classic detective story, Auster makes the well-traversed terrain of New York City his own.

Each interconnected tale exploits the elements of standard detective fiction to achieve an entirely new genre that was ground-breaking when it was published three decades ago.

In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of identity and what it means to be human.

Hear what readers made of Paul and his novel and what happened when another Paul Auster stood up to introduce himself to the Paul Auster on the stage.

Javier Marias - A Heart So White Oct 06, 2012

This month's World Book Club is brought to you from the Institute of Cervantes in London where Harriett Gilbert will be talking to bestselling Spanish writer Javier Marias about his prize-winning work A Heart So White.

This acclaimed novel explores profoundly disturbing questions about the nature of knowledge, curiosity and truth itself.

When the narrator Juan marries his sweetheart Luisa he is haunted by family secrets that cast their long shadow over his contentment and ponders the nature of secrecy – its convenience, its price – does he even want to know the truth he asks himself.

In the company of a lively group of readers at the Spanish Cultural Centre Marias also playfully dispenses his wisdom on how to keep a marriage together and why pen and paper beats technology.

Jodi Picoult - My Sister's Keeper Sep 01, 2012

In September's edition of World Book Club superstar US novelist Jodi Picoult talks about her heart-rending novel My Sister's Keeper.

A searing examination of what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person - My Sister's Keeper confronts the question of whether it is morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life.

In the programme Jodi talks with disarming openness about the near tragedy in her own life that helped to drive her to write the novel and she explains why for her writing feels like a form of schizophrenia.

Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit Jun 02, 2012

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is Jeanette Winterson's searing yet ultimately uplifting coming-out, coming-of-age tale, in which a young girl learns to rebel against her fanatical, cult-like upbringing, and set out on her own path in life. To mark thirty years since its publication, here's another chance to hear the memorable World Book Club in which Jeanette Winterson discusses where fact meets fiction - there are distinct parallels to her own life.

Hear how important this ground-breaking novel has been for readers around the globe. British writer Jeanette Winterson is in conversation with Harriett Gilbert (First broadcast in 2012.)

(Photo: Jeanette Winterson) (Credit: Ysabel Halpin)

Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines May 26, 2012

This is the last edition of the London Calling season of World Book Clubs - which have been going out each Saturday during May.

This week the programme are guests of The Nehru Centre - the cultural wing of the High Commission of India in London - and we're talking to acclaimed Bengali Indian author Amitav Ghosh about his haunting novel, The Shadow Lines.

A moving and thought-provoking meditation on the very real yet invisible lines, which divide nations, people, and families, The Shadow Lines focuses on a family in Calcutta and Dhaka and their connection with an English family in London.

From the tales of his colourful cousin the narrator conjures up a picture of London in his imagination that is so vivid that he recognizes it instantly when he visits years later and learns that real places can be invented inside your head.

(Photo: Amitav Ghosh) Credit: Getty Images)

Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question May 19, 2012

This week we've the third edition in our London Calling season of World Book Clubs which are going out each Saturday during May.

This week we're talking to Howard Jacobson at the first Soho Literary Festival in the heart of the UK capital about his dazzling Booker Prize-winning novel The Finkler Question.

A moving but often laugh-out-loud fictional foray into what it means to be Jewish Jacobson's award-winning novel features three old school friends who despite their very different lives have never quite lost touch.

Over dinner one balmy London evening they revisit a time before they had all loved and lost, unaware that an event later that night will change their lives for ever.

Andrea Levy - Small Island May 12, 2012

Andrea Levy discusses her novel Small Island with a studio audience, and the author revisits the West London setting of her multi-prize-winning novel.

A thought-provoking tale of love, friendship and immigration set in Earl's Court in 1948, Small Island focuses on the diaspora of Jamaican immigrants, who, escaping economic hardship on their own 'small island', move to England.

Once in the mother country, however, for which the men had fought and died for during World War II, their reception is not quite the warm embrace that they had hoped for.

Join Harriett Gilbert, readers in the studio and around the globe and Andrea Levy both in and out of the studio for World Book Club.

(Image: Author Andrea Levy)

Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor May 05, 2012

Coming up the first in our London Calling season of World Book Clubs which will be going out each Saturday over the next four weeks.

In the run up to the London Olympic games we'll be discussing four novels which focus on different aspects of the United Kingdom’s colourful and historic capital city.

This week we talk to acclaimed novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd who will be discussing his haunting Whitbread prize-winning novel, Hawksmoor, with an audience at St George's Church, Bloomsbury.

St George's is the final church designed by lauded architect of the English Baroque, Nicholas Hawksmoor, a central and sinister figure in this compelling murder mystery set amongst the labyrinthine streets of 18th Century London.

(Image: Peter Ackroyd)

Toni Morrison - Beloved Apr 07, 2012

World Book Club celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of that modern classic novel Beloved with another chance to hear the programme with American writer Toni Morrison.

In 2009 Toni Morrison came to the South Bank Arts Centre beside the River Thames in London to talk to a packed audience about her Pulitzer Prize-winning, international bestseller Beloved.

Having lost none of its power to shock a quarter of a century on, Beloved stares unflinchingly into the abyss of racism and transforms history into a poetic chronicle of slavery and its terrible, unending aftermath.

(Image: Toni Morrison. Credit: Peter Devlin)

Jonathan S Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Mar 03, 2012

Harriett Gilbert talks this month to American writer Jonathan Safran Foer about his novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Set in the aftermath of 9/11, it is the story of a young boy coming to terms with the tragedy of his father's death in the World Trade Centre.

After finding a mysterious key left behind in his Dad's closet, Oskar sets out across New York hoping to find some answers.

Both a meditation on pain, loss and the healing power of love - as well as an examination of the psyche of post 9/11 New York - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a novel that lingers in the mind.

(Image: Jonathan S Foer. Credit: Giuseppe Aliprandi)

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Feb 04, 2012

February 2012 marks the bicentenary of Victorian author Charles Dickens.

In this special edition of World Book Club, biographer Claire Tomalin talks to Harriett Gilbert about Dickens novel Great Expectations live from the BBC Radio Theatre, with actor Simon Callow.

(Image: Charles Dickens. Credit: Getty Images)

For further details of the British Council’s Global Celebration of Charles Dickens visit: www.britishcouncil.org/dickens2012

Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider Jan 07, 2012

Acclaimed Maori writer Witi Ihimaera talks to Harriett Gilbert and a group of readers at the Cheltenham Literary Festival about his magical, lore-laden novel, The Whale Rider.

It tells the haunting story of a spirited Maori girl, her tribe and their mysteriously intertwined destinies. Kahu, a 12-year-old girl struggles to become the chief of her tribe but her grandfather Koro, whose attention she craves, believes that this is a role reserved for males only. Kahu will not be ignored and in her quest she finds a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales.

Once this sacred gift is revealed, will Kahu be able to assume her rightful position and lead her tribe to a bold new future?

(Image: Witi Ihimaera 2015) (Credit: XAVIER LEOTY/AFP/Getty Images)

Penelope Lively - Moon Tiger Dec 03, 2011

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed British writer Penelope Lively about her Booker Prize winning novel Moon Tiger.

A haunting tale of loss, loneliness and secret desires Moon Tiger is the kaleidoscopic story of maverick historian Claudia Hampton.

Telling nurses on her death bed that she will write a "history of the world and in the process my own," she charts her intensely-lived life from her childhood in England after World War I to the war-torn desert plains of Egypt, 30 years later – and beyond.

Egocentric and condescending as well as vulnerable and gutsy, Claudia is a complex heroine for our times who lingers in the mind long after you put the book down.

(Image: Penelope Lively. Copyright: Penguin)

David Grossman - To the End of the Land Nov 05, 2011

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Israeli writer David Grossman about his award-winning novel, To the End of the Land.

Winner of - amongst others - the Wingate Jewish Book Prize for 2012, To the End of the Land is a novel of extraordinary power and lyrical intensity about the power of love and the devastating cost of war.

Instead of celebrating her son Ofer’s discharge from the Israeli Army, Ora is appalled when he reenlists and is sent back to the front for a major offensive. Unable to bear the thought of sitting alone waiting for the ‘notifiers’ to bring her bad news, she sets off on a hike across Israel with Ofer’s biological father who has never met his son and has has lived in near-seclusion since being tortured as a prisoner in the Yom Kippur war three decades before.

Photo credit: Reuters

Lionel Shriver - We Need To Talk About Kevin Oct 01, 2011

With the international release of the much anticipated film of We Need To Talk about Kevin in October, here's another chance to catch the World Book Club in which Harriett Gilbert and a studio audience talk to acclaimed American writer Lionel Shriver about this searing novel.

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005, We Need To Talk about Kevin is the profoundly disturbing story of a boy who, shortly before his 16th birthday, kills seven classmates in a high school massacre.

Grippingly but unreliably narrated through the letters of his mother Eva to his absent father Franklin, the novel raises questions about culpability, the limits of maternal love and the nature of evil itself.

Hisham Matar - In The Country Of Men Sep 03, 2011

Harriett Gilbert talks to Hisham Matar about his stunning debut novel In The Country Of Men.

Set in the bewildering world of Tripoli, it is the emotional tale of a young boy growing up, where fears, secrets and betrayal threaten the ties of family and friendship.

The novel was shortlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize.

Colm Toibin - Brooklyn Aug 06, 2011

Hariett Gilbert talks to Irish author Colm Toibin about his book Brooklyn.

A haunting tale of love, loss and familial duty, and winner of the 2009 UK Costa Novel Award, Brooklyn follows the fortunes of a young Irish woman who leaves home to make a new life for herself in 1950s New York.

Hear how Colm's own painful memories of homesickness in America and Spain inform Eilis' experiences in Brooklyn and how her ambivalent relationship to the small town Ireland she's left behind also echoes Colm Toibin's own.

Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers Jul 02, 2011

This month's World Book Club comes from the church of St Mary Magdalene in Woodstock, England.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Swedish superstar Henning Mankell about Faceless Killers, the first novel in his globally acclaimed series featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander.

In it, an elderly farm couple is brutally murdered and the only clue is the wife's uttering of the word "foreign" before she dies. Wallander must find the killers before anger towards foreigners boils over.

Hear about - and from - Wallander's female admirers around the globe all apparently queuing up to marry him, and about how Mankell plants deliberate errors - one in each novel - that no-one has ever spotted.

Val McDermid - A Place of Execution Jun 04, 2011

Acclaimed British writer Val McDermid discusses her page-turning crime novel A Place of Execution.

A taut psychological suspense thriller told through two overlapping and interlocking narratives, A Place of Execution takes place both in the present day as well as 1963 rural England with two different investigators exploring the disappearance of a 13 year old girl who vanished without a trace on a bitterly cold winter's afternoon.

This is not a cosy novel but one that confronts us with brutal realities and stirs up uncomfortable reactions, gripping the reader up to the very last page and its stunning conclusion.

Boris Akunin - The Winter Queen May 07, 2011

Detective Erast Fandorin investigates a student's apparent suicide in 19th-century Moscow. Russian writer Boris Akunin talks to Harriett Gilbert and listeners in the studio and around the world about his page-turning, best-selling crime novel The Winter Queen.

After setting out to solve the apparent suicide of a university student in 19th Century Moscow, eager young investigator Erast Fandorin soon finds himself embroiled in a far-reaching international conspiracy.

Boris Akunin tells us where he found the inspiration for his winning young detective who bounces from one cliff-hanger to the next. He also describes why short Russian literature - rather than the heavy tomes of earlier generarions - provides a better "role model" for today's youngsters.

Photo: Boris Akunin Credit: Getty Images

Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast Apr 02, 2011

Dysfunctional Norwegian detective Harry Hole navigates a World War Two ghost story. Voted the best Norwegian crime novel ever, Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast delves into neo-Nazi activity in Norway and ends up re-examining a crime that had its roots in the battlefields of the Eastern Front in World War II.

Hear how Jo admits that there’s more than a little of him in his dysfunctional detective Harry Hole and how his own parents ended up on opposing sides during the war, father fighting for the Nazis and his mother in the Norwegian resistance.

Jo Nesbo photo: Hakon-Eikesdal

Javier Cercas - Soldiers Of Salamis Mar 05, 2011

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Spanish writer and historian Javier Cercas about his haunting novel Soldiers of Salamis.

Internationally feted and winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2004, Soldiers of Salamis delves into the painful history of Spain's Civil War through the gripping, death-defying story of fascist soldier Sanchez Mazas.

In his meditation on the nature of heroism and humanity in war, of remembrance and forgetting after war, the narrator moves from cynical indifference through fascination to wholehearted empathy as the true hero of the story eventually emerges centre stage.

PJ O'Rourke - Eat The Rich Feb 05, 2011

In Eat the Rich the inimitable American satirist P.J. O'Rourke tours the world trying to understand why some countries 'have' and some countries 'have not'.

He talks to Harriett Gilbert and answers questions about his book from a live studio audience and listeners around the world.

Bernhard Schlink - The Reader Jan 01, 2011

Harriett Gilbert talks to the acclaimed German writer Bernhard Schlink about his explosively controversial novel, The Reader, at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.

Made into an Oscar-winning Hollywood film with Kate Winslet The Reader tells of law student Michael Berg who, nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.

Damon Galgut - The Good Doctor Dec 04, 2010

Damon Galgut's internationally acclaimed novel is the story of an idealistic medical graduate who arrives at an isolated South African hospital to take up a year's community service.

Damon discusses his novel The Good Doctor, and answers questions from BBC World Service listeners around the world.

Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows Nov 06, 2010

Harriett Gilbert and an audience at the Drill Hall Theatre in Central London talk to bestselling Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie about her internationally acclaimed novel Burnt Shadows.

Spanning much of the 20th Century and into the 21st, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of disasters evaded and confronted, loyalties honoured and betrayed, and loves lost and found.

In the devastating aftermath of the second atomic bomb, Hiroko Tanaka leaves Japan in search of new beginnings.

From Delhi, amid India's cry for independence from British colonial rule, to New York City in the uncertain wake of 9/11, to the novel's nail-biting climax in Afghanistan, a violent history casts its shadow over the entire world over.

(Photo: Kamila Shamsie. Credit: Reuters)

Barbara Kingsolver Oct 02, 2010

This month's World Book Club comes from the Jesus Centre in London.

Harriett Gilbert and readers talk to bestselling writer Barbara Kingsolver about her internationally acclaimed novel The Poisonwood Bible.

Having sold four million copies around the world, Kingsolver's most ambitious novel paints an intimate portrait of a crisis-ridden family amid the larger backdrop of an African nation in chaos.

In 1959 an overzealous Baptist minister Nathan Price drags his wife and four daughters deep into the heart of the Congo on a mission to save the unenlightened souls of Africa.

As his plans unravel in tandem with the country's dreams of becoming an independent democracy, the five women narrate the novel, each in their own inimitable voice.

World Book Club: Carlos Ruiz Zafon Jul 03, 2010

Part stunning literary thriller, part gothic novel, the book The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

It is a potent mix of a coming-of-age novel and a tragic love story set in Barcelona's post-war years. Harriet Gilbert puts questions from the audience to the author Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

World Book Club: David Mitchell Jun 05, 2010

Harriett Gilbert talks to David Mitchell about his novel Cloud Atlas.

World Book Club: Richard Ford May 01, 2010

Richard Ford discusses his classic novel 'The Sportswriter' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.

World Book Club: J.M.G. Le Clezio Apr 03, 2010

French Nobel Laureate JMG Le Clezio talks to Harriett Gilbert in front of an invited studio audience about his recently-translated work Desert.

Contrasting the beauty of a lost culture in the North African desert with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants, the novel is a rich, poetic and provocative epic about colonization and its legacy, which is still painfully relevant after 30 years.

World Book Club: John Boyne Mar 06, 2010

John Boyne discusses his acclaimed novel 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.

World Book Club: Andrea Levy Feb 06, 2010

Harriet Gilbert talks to Andrea Levy about Small Island, a heart-warming and tale of love and immigration during World War II.

Kiran Desai Jan 02, 2010

Harriett Gilbert talks to Indian writer Kiran Desai about her internationally bestselling work The Inheritance of Loss.

Winner of the Man Booker prize in 2006, Desai’s novel is a profoundly moving cross-continental saga that sweeps around the globe from the Himalayas to New York City to Cambridge in the UK.

Reflecting the author’s own Indian-American upbringing the novel interweaves the grand disruptions of politics with the domestic lives and loves of three memorable characters, the morose judge, his lovelorn granddaughter Sai and their devoted, long-suffering cook.

World Book Club: James Ellroy Dec 05, 2009

James Ellroy discusses his novel American Tabloid with Harriett Gilbert and an invited audience.

World Book Club: Alaa Al Aswany Nov 07, 2009

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building.

It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002.

The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of diverse characters who live and work in downtown Cairo.

A moving study of politics and power, sex and revenge - centred on the apartment building - the Yacoubian building, which still stands in Cairo today.

The novel offers a compelling yet daringly scathing portrayal of modern Egypt since the Revolution of 1952.

World Book Club: Gunter Grass Oct 03, 2009

Half a century on from its first publication, G�nter Grass will be talking about The Tin Drum from his home in Lubeck, Germany.

World Book Club: Lionel Shriver Jul 09, 2009

This month Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed American writer Lionel Shriver.

Her prizewinning novel, We Need to Talk about Kevin, is the profoundly disturbing story of a boy who, shortly before his 16th birthday, kills seven classmates in a high school massacre.

Grippingly but unreliably narrated through the letters from his mother to his absent father, the novel raises questions about culpability, the limits of maternal love and the nature of evil itself.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun Jun 04, 2009

In this month's World Book Club Harriett Gilbert will be at London’s South Bank Arts Centre talking to internationally acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about her bestselling novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Winner of the UK Orange Prize for fiction in 2007 Half of a Yellow Sun charts the stories of three intersecting lives turned upside down by the Biafran war in the late 1960s.

Village boy Ugwu comes to work for a charismatic professor. The professor’s glamorous girlfriend Olanna forgoes her life of luxury to live with him and Englishman Richard is in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. Meanwhile the shadow of this most horrific of civil wars, whose repercussions are still felt in Nigeria today, looms ever larger.

(Photo: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) (Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC)

Nawal El Saadawi - Woman At Point Zero Apr 30, 2009

Harriett Gilbert talks to internationally acclaimed Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi about her classic novel Woman at Point Zero.Recorded in 2009.

Written over 30 years ago but still resonating clearly today Woman at Point Zero is a dark and powerful account of the life of a young woman awaiting execution in a Cairo prison for murdering her pimp. Her crime, borne of anger at her lifelong mistreatment at the hands of men, is one she confesses to with no shame. The urgency and passion of the writing in this book is more than matched by the author’s response to the questions posed by you, our World Book Club listeners, around the world.

(Photo: Nawal El Saadawi, 2012) (Credit: MARINA HELLI/AFP/Getty Images)

Episode 1 Apr 03, 2009

This month Kate Grenville talks about her best-selling novel The Secret River. Her first work for five years since she won the Orange Prize, The Secret River was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize soon after publication. Set in 1806 and based on the true story of Kate’s first Australian ancestor, this is a dramatic and evocative historical novel set between the slums of nineteenth-century London and the convict colonies of Australia. Told through the eyes of William Thornhill and his family The Secret River examines the timeless themes of ownership, belonging and identity against a backdrop of Aboriginal Australia.

Book list:

Title: The Secret River Author: Kate Grenville Publisher: Canongate Books ISBN-13: 978-1841956824

If you'd like to take part in a future World Book Club, here's your chance.

Lionel Shriver will be discussing his bestselling novel We Need to Talk Kevin on Tuesday 12th May 2009.

Please submit your question for Lionel Shriver in the comment section on the form below or ring us on (+44) 207 5571619.

Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mar 07, 2009

Mohsin Hamid talks to Harriett Gilbert and an invited audience about his bestselling novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a sparse, gripping, short novel that tackles the complex issues of Islamic fundamentalism and America's 'war on terror' with sympathy and balance.

Book list:

Title: The Reluctant Fundamentalist Author: Mohsin Hamid Publisher: Penguin ISBN-13: 978-0-141-02954-2

If you'd like to take part in a future World Book Club, here's your chance.

Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi will be talking about her classic novel Woman at Point Zero on Friday 3rd April 2009 and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be discussing her bestselling novel Half of a Yellow Sun on 7th April 2009.

Please submit your question for Nawal El Saadawi or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the comment section on the form below or ring us on (+44) 207 5571619.

Episode 1 Feb 09, 2009

Harriett Gilbert talks to David Guterson about his novel Snow Falling on Cedars.

Toni Morrison - Beloved Feb 09, 2009

Harriett Gilbert talks to Toni Morrison about her novel Beloved. Recorded in January 2009.

(Photo: BBC)

Derek Walcott Dec 16, 2008

Harriett Gilbert talks to Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott about his epic poem Omeros, which explores ancient themes of displacement and exile in a modern Caribbean setting.

Episode 1 Nov 18, 2008

Harriett Gilbert talks to Alice Walker about her novel The Color Purple.

Annie Proulx Sep 30, 2008

American writer Annie Proulx talks about her prize-winning novel 'The Shipping News' and her short story 'Brokeback Mountain'.

26/08/2008 Aug 27, 2008

David Lodge discusses his acclaimed novel 'Nice Work'.

Chinua Achebe Jul 30, 2008

To mark the 50th anniversary of the first publication of the acclaimed African novel ‘Things Fall Apart’, we are repeating the memorable World Book Club with bestselling Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

John Irving Jun 25, 2008

American author John Irving discusses his bestselling novel 'The World According to Garp', the tragicomic lifestory of the author TS Garp.

28/05/2008 May 27, 2008

Harriett Gilbert talks to Khaled Hosseini about his book The Kite Runner.

Sebastian Faulks May 02, 2008

Best-selling English writer Sebastian Faulks talks about his heart-rending novel of love and war, Birdsong.

Jane Smiley Apr 01, 2008

Best-selling American author Jane Smiley discusses A Thousand Acres, her ambitious re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear transposed onto an Iowan farmstead, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Patricia Cornwell Feb 28, 2008

American crime writer Patricia Cornwell talks about Post Mortem, the first novel in her celebrated Kay Scarpetta series.

Edna O'Brien Jan 31, 2008

Irish writer Edna O'Brien discusses The Country Girls, her novel about adolescence set in 1950's Ireland.

Umberto Eco Dec 25, 2007

Italian author Umberto Eco discusses his novel The Name of the Rose, set in a 14th Century Franciscan monastery and answers questions from an invited audience.

(Photo: Umberto Eco)

Sara Paretsky Nov 28, 2007

American crime writer Sara Paretsky talks to Harriett Gilbert about her detective novel 'Indemnity Only'.

Michael Ondaatje Nov 02, 2007

A special fifth-anniversary edition of the World Book Club with the Sri Lankan-born, Canadian author Michael Ondaatje who discusses his best-loved novel 'The English Patient'.

Image: Michael Ondaatje, Credit: Prakash SinghAFP/Getty Images

Armistead Maupin Sep 25, 2007

Harriett Gilbert talks to American author Armistead Maupin about his novel Tales of the City.

Thomas Keneally: Schindler's Ark Jun 26, 2007

Thomas Keneally discusses his novel Schindler's Ark published in 1982 - released as Schindler's List in the USA. It is based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, who is credited with saving hundreds of Jews in Poland and Czechoslovakia from death during World War II by employing them in his factory. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

(Photo: Tom Keneally) (Credit: BBC)

Richard Dawkins Jun 07, 2007

Richard Dawkins answers questions from an audience and sent in by BBC listeners about his international best-seller, The Selfish Gene. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Wole Soyinka May 29, 2007

Wole Soyinka talks about his memoirs Ake: The Years of Childhood. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert

Mario Vargas Llosa Apr 29, 2007

World Book club with author Mario Vargas Llosa.

Irvine Welsh Apr 29, 2007

Author Irvine Welsh talks about his internationally best-selling novel Trainspotting and If You Liked School, You'll Love Work. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Iain Banks Mar 01, 2007

Scottish author, Iain Banks answers questions from an audience and sent in by BBC listeners about his controversial first novel, The Wasp Factory. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Yann Martel: Life of Pi Jan 29, 2007

Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, talked to World Book Club in April 2014. His fantasy novel tells the tale of the shipwreck and survival of Pi Patel, a 16-year-ld boy - also a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, an orang-utan and a huge Bengal tiger. Yann was born in Spain and lives in Canada. The book has since been adapted as a film by Ang Lee.

Rose Tremain - Restoration Jan 18, 2007

Rose Tremain answers questions from an audience and sent in by World Service listeners about her international best-seller, Restoration, set in the time of Charles II in 17th Century England. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

William Boyd - Brazzaville Beach Dec 27, 2006

William Boyd discusses his novel Brazzaville Beach with Harriett Gilbert

John Le Carre Dec 25, 2006

Interview with special guest John le Carre about his recent novel “The Perfect Spy” Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Frank McCourt Oct 31, 2006

Presenter: Harriett Gilbert. Frank McCourt joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his book Angela's Ashes.

Arnold Wesker Oct 06, 2006

Arnold Wesker joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his classic play Chicken Soup with Barley. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Ian Rankin Aug 28, 2006

Presenter: Harriett Gilbert. Ian Rankin joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel Black and Blue.

Joanna Trollope Jul 25, 2006

The World Book Club talks to author Joanna Trollope about her book The Rector's Wife. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Kurt Vonnegut May 30, 2006

Kurt Vonnegut joins an audience of World Service listeners to answer questions about his novel Slaughterhouse-Five

Orhan Pamuk Apr 25, 2006

Orhan Pamuk joins an audience of World Service listeners to answer questions about his novel My Name is Red (Benim Adım Kırmızı).

Alexander McCall Smith Mar 25, 2006

From the British Library in London, Alexander McCall Smith talks to the programme as well as an audience for a question and answer session. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert

Scott Turow Feb 09, 2006

Scott Turow joins an audience of World Service listeners to answer questions about his 1987 crime novel Presumed Innocent.

Louis De Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin Jan 05, 2006

The British author, Louis De Bernieres answers questions from an audience and sent in by BBC listeners about his novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

(Photo: Louis de Bernieres in his study, holding a mandolin) (Credit: BBC)

Philip Pullman Nov 17, 2005

Philip Pullman talks about his book and takes questions on his book The Northen Lights part of the His Dark Materials trilogy.

(Photo: Philip Pullman. Credit: Getty Images)

Maya Angelou Oct 07, 2005

Maya Angelou answers listeners questions about her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Salman Rushdie Oct 01, 2005

Salman Rushdie talks to an audience and takes questions on his award winning book Midnight's Children. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Andre Brink Aug 27, 2005

Andre Brink joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel A Dry White Season.

Joyce Carol Oates Jul 23, 2005

Author of "Blonde" Joyce Carol Oates answers questions about her novel. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Carlos Fuentes Jun 15, 2005

Carlos Fuentes joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel The Death of Artemio Cruz.

Nick Hornby May 28, 2005

Nick Hornby talks to an audience about his book about being an Arsenal football fan Fever Pitch. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy May 09, 2005

Vikram Seth joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel A Suitable Boy. Presented by Harriett Gilbert. Recorded May 2005.

(Photo: BBC)

Ian McEwan - Atonement Mar 26, 2005

Ian McEwan discusses his 20th century familiy saga about the need for atonement

Zadie Smith Feb 19, 2005

Zadie Smith talks to an audience about her novel 'White Teeth'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

PD James Jan 25, 2005

P.D. James joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss her novel 'Original Sin'. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist Dec 12, 2004

Writer Paulo Coelho talks about his book The Alchemist which has been translated into dozens of languages and has sold over 27 million copies worldwide. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

(Photo: Paulo Coelho, 2010) (Credit: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

Kazuo Ishiguro Nov 04, 2004

Kazuo Ishiguro joins Harriett Gilbert and an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his classic novel The Remains Of The Day.

(Photo: Kazuo Ishiguro. Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC)

Anita Desai - Fasting, Feasting Sep 30, 2004

Anita Desai joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss her 1999 novel 'Fasting, Feasting'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert. Broadcast in September 2004.

(Photo: Anita Desai) (Credit: Jerry Bauer)

Roddy Doyle Sep 13, 2004

Roddy Doyle talks about his novel The Commitments. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Amoz Oz Sep 02, 2004

Amos Oz joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel 'My Michael'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Gillian Slovo Jul 29, 2004

South African novelist, Gillian Slovo talks about her novel 'Red Dust'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Tracy Chevalier May 20, 2004

Tracy Chevalier joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss her novel 'Girl With A Pearl Earring'.

Image: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, Credit: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

Martin Cruz Smith Feb 24, 2004

Author Martin Cruz Smith talks about his novel Gorky Park. Presented by Harriett Gilbert from California in a special co-production with San Francisco radio station KALW

Amy Tan Jan 29, 2004

Amy Tan joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss her novel The Joy Luck Club.

Isabelle Allende - The House of Spirits Nov 26, 2003

Chilean novelist Isabel Allende joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss her novel 'The House of the Spirits'. First broadcast in November 2003. (Photo credit: Lori Barra.)

Frederick Forsyth - The Day of the Jackal Oct 23, 2003

Frederick Forsyth joins an audience of World Service listners to discuss his novel 'The Day of the Jackal'. Introduced by Harriett Gilbert. First broadcast in October 2003.

(Photo: Frederick Forsyth outside his home in Ireland, 1978) (Credit: Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Peter Carey Sep 25, 2003

Peter Carey joins an audience of World Service listeners to discuss his novel 'Oscar and Lucinda'. Introduced by Harriett Gilbert.

Ruth Rendell - A Judgement in Stone Aug 28, 2003

Popular British crime writer Ruth Rendell talked to the programme about her work, including that written under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. Ruth Rendell died in May 2015.

(Photo: Ruth Rendell) (Credit:Seth Wenig/Reuters)

Julian Barnes Jul 31, 2003

Julian Barnes joins a World Service audience to discuss his novel 'Flaubert's Parrot'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Jung Chang Jun 14, 2003

Prize winning Chinese writer Jung Chang joins a World Service audience to discuss her novel 'Wild Swans'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic May 29, 2003

Author Terry Pratchett talking about The Colour Of Magic in 2003, one of his Discworld series. Terry died in March 2015. The World Book Club was presented by Harriett Gilbert.

Photo: Terry Pratchett Credit: PA

Margaret Atwood Apr 08, 2003

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The novel explores themes of women in subjugation, and the various means by which they gain agency. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Doris Lessing Feb 11, 2003

The British author Doris Lessing died on 17 November at the age of 94. As a tribute the BBC World Service revisits Doris Lessing’s discussion with Harriett Gilbert from a 2003 edition of World Book Club, when she talked about her debut novel The Grass is Singing, which was published in 1950.

In an introduction to the original interview, Harriett remembers her encounters with Doris Lessing with affection and reminds us of the fact that she became the oldest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 when she won the award for her life’s work.

Hanif Kureishi Feb 03, 2003

Hanif Kureishi joins a World Service audience to discuss his book 'The Buddha of Suburbia'. Presented by Harriett Gilbert.

V S Naipaul - A House for Mr Biswas Jan 04, 2003

Nobel Prize winner V. S Naipaul discussess his book 'A House for Mr Biswas' with an audience of World Service listeners. Presented by Harriett Gilbert. (Photo: VS Naipaul, Credit: Press Association)

Ben Okri Dec 31, 2002

Nigerian born writer Ben Okri discusses his novel The Famished Road. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things Dec 02, 2002

Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy talks to the programme about winning the Booker Prize in 1997 for The God of Small Things. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

(First broadcast December 2002)

(Photo: Arundhati Roy) (Credit: HOCINE ZAOURAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Martin Amis - Money: A Suicide Note Oct 08, 2002

Martin Amis joins an audience of World Service listeners to answer questions about his novel Money. Broadcast in October 2002.

(Photo: Martin Amis, 2006. Credit: BBC)

Stephen King Aug 27, 2002

What makes Stephen King, not only the Master of Horror, but more than that?

(Image: Stephen King speaking in 2009. Credit: Mike Segar/Reuters)

Garrison Keillor - Lake Wobegon Days Aug 13, 2002

In the First ever Meridian Writing World Book Club, Harriett Gilbert talks to American writer Garrison Keillor on his book Lake Wobegon Days.

David Hare Jul 27, 2002

Interview with the playwright and director, David Hare.

Maya Angelou Jul 04, 2002

Interview with American poet, memoirist, actress, Maya Angelou. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

Chenjerai Hove - Ancestors Feb 05, 2002

Zimbabwean novelist,poet and playright Chenjerai Hove talks to Harriett Gilbert about his novel 'Ancestors'. This programme with Chenjerai Hove, who died in 2015, was first broadcast in February 2002.

Bahaa Taher Jan 15, 2002

Harriett Gilbert talks to the Egyptian writer, Bahaa Taher an Egyptian novelist who writes in Arabic and is the winner of the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction, awarded in 2008.

Iain Sinclair Jan 10, 2002

Interview with Iain Sinclair on his book, 'London Orbital'. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert.

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