One day lived over and over again with humour, despair and self-improvement is what we’re up against in Danish novelist Solvej Balle’s On The Calculation of Volume, a fictional work in seven volumes, the first volume (the one we’re talking about in this episode), has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Plus, The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, the poet and novelist famous for On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous; and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a portrait of a spiky woman's life expanding through letters.

BOOKS 

Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume l, (translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland), Faber  

Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness, Jonathan Cape 

Virginia Evans, The Correspondent, Michael Joseph 

GUESTS 

Sarah Holland-Batt, poet, critic and essayist. Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at QUT. Her latest poetry collection The Jaguar was awarded the Stella Prize in 2023 

Hilde Hinton is a writer whose books include the novels The Loudness of Unsaid Things, A Solitary Walk on the Moon and her latest, The Opposite of Lonely 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDAnna Funder, WifedomFiona McFarlane worksMichelle de Kretser, Theory & Practice Bram Stoker, Dracula  Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian MoleTayari Jones, An American Marriage Alice Walker, The Colour Purple Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin Annie Burrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge seriesNiall Campbell, The Island in the SoundChris Whittaker, All the Colours of the DarkInga Simpson, Willowman

CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Huberman
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown