Multi-million selling superstar author, Ken Follett, returns to Book Off and goes head to head in a war of the words with author and artist Amy Jeffs.
Ken discusses his latest novel 'Circle Of Days' and his fascination with Stonehenge. He talks about the challenges of writing in different historic periods, deep research and how to turn lots of factual information into a brilliantly engaging, page-turning novel.
Amy chats about her book 'Old Songs', and her fascination with folk songs and ballads. Amy steeped herself in medieval history and has studied this period and the songs of this time extensively.
The two guests also give us some brilliant book recommendations - and Ken tells about his short-lived comedy writing career in the 70s!
THE BOOK OFF
'The Man Of Property' by John Galsworthy
VS
'Moonfleet' by J. Meade Falkner
But which one will win?
Here's a little more info on our guests' books:
'Circle Of Days' by Ken Follett
A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Rite, and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Her family lives in prosperity and offers Seft an escape from his brutish father and brothers, within their herder community.
A PRIESTESS WHO BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE
Joia, Neen's sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain.
A MONUMENT THAT WILL DEFINE A CIVILISATION
Joia's vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life's work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders - and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare . . .
'Old Songs' by Amy Jeffs and Gwen Burns
Old Songs fuses short stories, histories, lyrics and illustrations in an enthralling reimagining of traditional folk ballads. Sunday Times Bestselling historian Amy Jeffs and Illustrator Gwen Burns combine forces to create a rich compendium, singing of travel, mystery, magic and the essential urges of humanity.
Featuring iterations of fairy tales and sinister descendants of Greek myths and bible stories, as well as a cast of lesser-known characters with names like Tam Lim, Child Wynd and Maisery, Old Songs threads a tapestry of Britain's landscape, history and cultures. At the base of hills we can visit to this day, elf queens kidnap hapless poets and carry them through rivers of blood; and at the foot of a tree whose offspring still stand in the forests of Northumberland, a girl mimes combing the hairless head of a dragon who was once her brother.
In spellbinding tales of brown-skinned girls who danced on their lovers' graves, of golden-masted ships captained by the Devil, of fiddles that cried "Murder!", of men kidnapped by fairies and boys married at fourteen, we find narrative motifs as ancient as humanity itself.
In the histories interconnecting the stories, we find the fantastical rooted in the everyday, bringing to light the real experiences of great swathes of people to whom such story-songs were not only familiar, but a way of escaping into the extraordinary and returning gratefully home. Bringing enchantment to familiar landscapes, ballads were created anew by each singer and passed down from fireside to fireside, at the knees of childhood nurses, in manuscripts and in early printed pamphlets. Now, ten stories are gathered here, beautifully recreated for modern readers.
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