In honour of the New Year we take a look at the best books from the Arab world in 2017 according to writer, author, journalist, and co-host Maán Jalal.

Tune in as Shen Husain, lifelong fan of YA fiction and frequent moderator of children’s authors at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, reviews Turtles All the Way Down by John Green during our Young Reviewer segment. John Green’s long anticipated return after Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars tells the story of 16-year-old Aza, a girl who ends up pursuing the mystery of a fugitive billionaire in the midst of her struggle with OCD.

Lifetime bookworm and author Daisy Line sits in for a double feature of two cracking debut novels this week. First up - The Boy Made of Snow, a story set in a sleepy English village during the Second World War by Chloe Mayer. Then we move on to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, the story of a woman with a mysterious past who tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. #zerofilter

The Big Question – What happened on Talking of Books in 2017?
From poetry to taxidermy and stories of lost Ian Fleming first editions – there’s not much we haven’t talked about this year on Talking of Books. Here’s an audible scrapbook of some of our favourite moments.
Book of the Week

2018 Emirates Airline Festival of Literature moderator Rehan Khan shares the three books he would most prefer to be stranded on an island with. It’s a topical selection this week, with Malcolm X’s autobiography, but with hope for a New Year defined by goodness and valour in the form of Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings and Elif Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love. The way these titles connected surprised us…

Record breaking British polar explorer and adventurer, Adrian Hayes joins us to share the three books he would most prefer to be stranded on an island with. If there’s anyone who’d make it off the island on this segment so far, it’s Adrian – his new book K2: The Tragedy and the Triumph is about his journey to conquer a mountain that claims more lives and is a harder challenge to face than Everest.

We sat down with food writer and author Courtney Brandt to discuss the question on everyone’s mind this holiday season: What literary gifts do you get for the foodies in your lives? We cover cookbooks, unforgettable experiences and more gift ideas. Whether you’re looking for this year, anniversaries, birthdays or this time next year…You’re welcome.

Our young reviewer Nia Rees is quite possibly the biggest Holly Webb fan ever. She tells us all about The Hounds of Penallow Hall: The Lost Treasure, the second book of a new series set in the fictional Penhallow Hall in Cornwall where ten-year old Polly embarks on adventures with an unusual bunch of friends. Holly is also kind enough to wake up super early to chat to us all the way from the UK!

What if you could take a pill that gave you eternal youth? That’s the question we’re asking this week on Arab World, as we are joined by Fadi Zaghmout, blogger, activist and author of Heaven on Earth, a sci-fi tale set in Amman, Jordan in the 2090’s. Hani Yakan, a mechanical engineer with a passion for the arts, and moderator at Fadi’s book launch, also weighs in.

Me Before You and After You, are the Jojo Moyes books that have stolen everyone’s hearts and this week on Talking of Books we reviewed the much-anticipated sequel, Still Me. Spoiler alert – Louisa Clark still has those bumblebee tights!