A Good Read

Harriett Gilbert is joined by her guests - writer, Meg Rosoff and comedian, Sara Pascoe - to discuss favourite books by Lynn Barber, Yasunari Kawabata and Ayn Rand.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

An Education by Lynn Barber

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2013.

Mariella Frostrup talks to Ali Smith about Sylvia Plath's ground breaking novel The Bell Jar, fifty years after it was first published. With the announcement of the Goldsmiths Prize for writers of boldly, original fiction - writer and broadcaster Alex Preston and author, poet and Profesor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, Blake Morrison, consider what being experimental and innovative means for 21st century novelists. And in his 17th novel, Bedlam, Scottish crime writer Christopher Brookmyre turns to science fiction for inspiration.

Harriett Gilbert and her guests - comedian, Miles Jupp and singer, Barb Jungr - discuss their favourite books by Jonathan Franzen, Michael Frayn and Andrey Kurko.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Spies by Michael Frayn

Death And The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Mariella Frostrup talks to novelist Thomas Keneally, publisher and writer Carmen Callil and critic Geordie Williamson about Australian classic novels asking if Australia has neglected its literary heritage. Robert Hudson tells us about his hilarious new novel The Dazzle - a fishy tale set in 1930's Scarborough. And the latest developments in literary neuroscience - what exactly is the human brain doing when we are reading a good book?

Mariella Frostrup discusses Chinese literature and how we can view this emerging superpower through its novels, with author Mo Yan's translator Howard Goldblatt and novelist and film maker Xiaolu Guo. Eleanor Updale talks about how she tells a story in the space of one minute in her latest novel, The Last Minute. And literary critic Suzi Feay delves into the world of the debut novel examining the latest Waterstones' 11 list of new fiction writers, how well their past predictions have done and why she feels now is a good time to be a debut novelist.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Mariella Frostrup travels to Austen's home in Chawton to discover why this novel has remained so universally popular, the story around its publication and what it has to say to modern readers.

Authors James Runcie and Naomi Alderman and the editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones join Mariella Frostrup to discuss the literary trends of 2012. Themes include EL James's 50 Shades of Grey and the rise of the bonkbusters, Hilary Mantel's historic second winning of the Man Booker Prize and what that means for historical fiction, and how self-publishing is helping to change what and how people read.

Colin Firth shares his 5 of the best books with Mariella Frostrup. The Sound and the Fury, Coming Through Slaughter, The Leopold, The World as I Found it and The Power and the Glory.

Barbara Kingsolver talks about her latest novel Flight Behaviour, David Baddiel and D.T. Max discuss American writer David Foster Wallace and Victoria Glendinning on the founder of Singapore and subject of her latest biography, Sir Stamford Thomas Raffles.

Mariella Frostrup talks to India Knight about her hilarious new novel Mutton featuring 46 year old heroine Clara Hutt and her encounters with the opposite sex. M C Beaton proves age is no bar to high achievement for women: at 76, this year sees the publication of the 23rd novel in her Agatha Raisin Murder Mystery series, Hiss and Hers. The second most borrowed adult crime author from libraries nationwide, she discusses the secret of her success and why she keeps on writing. But what else are library users reading and how does it vary across the country? Dorcas Taylor from East Riding Library Service and Annie Bell from Edinburgh Library Service reveal what their readers are enjoying locally and what the rest of us are missing out on.